When families huddle in the cold outside nursing home windows, you can see a COVID-19 tragedy unfolding. But a less visible pandemic tragedy is just now coming into view: college dreams for low-income students going up in smoke.

Regardless of the type of college — community college, public colleges or private — fall of 2020 enrollment rates for low-income students plunged at rates nearly double that for students from higher-income high schools, reports the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Across all types of colleges, enrollment for low-income high school graduates declined by 29.2 percent, compared to a 16.9 percent drop for their counterparts from higher-income high schools. At community colleges, the drop for low-income students was even more dramatic — 37.1 percent. This is the first time the Clearinghouse, the nation’s best source for tracking college attainment data, has traced the impact of COVID-19. Using the 2020 high school graduate data from more than 2,300 high schools broken out by income level, poverty, race and urban, suburban or rural locale, the Clearinghouse was able to analyze college enrollment gaps by demographic and economic background.

Read the full article about college enrollment for low-income high school grads by Richard Whitmire at The 74.