By Deborah Brennan
As the world settled into pandemic life, students who graduated from high school during the COVID-19 crisis started new chapters of their lives in social and academic seclusion.
Many spent their senior year on Zoom, without homecomings, proms or graduations. They struggled to pass classes and navigate college applications. And they entered college with gaps in study skills and anxiety about social interactions.
They spent their first year of college — typically a time of discovery — in online classes or alone in dorm rooms. Now, some are graduating from college, while others simply gave up.
Across California students grappled with transitioning to college during the pandemic. The challenges were magnified in the Inland Empire, where only about a quarter of all adults hold four-year degrees, compared to 37% statewide.
“I felt really lonely, and it was really, really stressful at that time,” said Maribel Gamez-Reyes, A UC Riverside student from Inglewood.
Holes in their education
Especially for students who are the first in their families to attend college, what should have been their moment of triumph became months of tension. Some questioned whether they even belonged on a college campus, said UC Riverside Dean of Students Christine Mata.
“During lockdown students weren’t able to bond and build connections to the institution, or even access support structures,” she said.
Their academic shortfalls and social isolation took a toll. UC Riverside found that math and writing skills were lower among the students who graduated from high school during the pandemic than for previous high school graduates.
In 2019, before COVID, about 13% of incoming freshmen entered UC Riverside at the lowest math level. In 2020 about 20% of freshmen — the class that lost nearly half its senior year to the pandemic — fell into the lowest math tier.
The 2021 class of high school graduates saw the percentage of low-performing math students tick up even more, to 22%. Those students had spent half their junior year and nearly all their senior year in remote learning.
Likewise, 25% of freshmen entered the university at the lowest writing level in 2019. In 2020 32% fell into the bottom tier. The following year 29% of incoming students started at the lowest writing level.
Math and English levels among incoming freshmen have improved in the past couple of years, university data show.
Grade inflation in high school contributed to those pandemic-era gaps, said Lesley Davidson-Boyd, associate vice president of California State University, San Bernardino. Some high school seniors graduated at the time with stellar grades but below-average test scores in math and English, she said.
“There were a lot of holes in their education,” she said. “There were vital pieces that were missing.”
The federal government sent schools billions in extra pandemic funding, but much of California’s higher education money was not spent on helping students catch up academically.
California received about $34 billion in pandemic aid to education, with about $10 billion of that dedicated to colleges and universities, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Of that, $4 billion was direct aid to students, for help with tuition and other college expenses.
Institutions got $5.3 billion and spent some of that on technology to accommodate remote learning. But much of it went to replacing lost revenue, which administrators said backfilled losses from campus and dormitory closures, and enrollment declines.
Enrollment also took a hit at some California colleges and universities, including many Inland Empire campuses. While enrollment in the University of California system overall has climbed steadily since 2020, it remained flat at UC Riverside since 2020. In the decade before the pandemic, its four-year graduation rate climbed from less than 50% to 67%. But that slid to 60% for the class that started in 2020.
California State Universities’ enrollment numbers dropped during the pandemic, and while admissions finally started rebounding system-wide, it has continued to decline at Cal State San Bernardino from more than 20,000 in 2019 to less than 18,000 in 2024. Four-year graduation rates at Cal State San Bernardino had nearly doubled, from about 13% in 2009, to 25% in 2019, before dropping slightly for the class that started during the first year of the pandemic, in 2020.
Enrollment at the California Community College system fell sharply during the pandemic, but has rebounded throughout the state, including the Inland Empire.
Adriana Banda: Playing catch-up
Pandemic graduates who did go to college often played catch-up in their first year, trying to recover academic skills they lost during remote learning.
For Adriana Banda, pandemic education was a lonely exercise in perseverance. Desert Hot Springs High School offered students the chance to go back in person on limited class schedules, with social distancing precautions, but some of Banda’s family members faced medical risks, so it was a “no-brainer” to stay home and learn remotely, she said.
“I had to learn on my own,” said Banda, now 22. “I honestly didn’t learn much that year. I was just trying to get through high school.”
For years she had looked forward to senior milestones — prom, grad night, a senior sunset gathering and weekends with friends — but she watched them fall away as COVID-19 persisted.
“Having all of my senior experiences taken away from me was really disappointing and discouraging,” she said.
Banda plodded through Zoom classes and graduated high school in 2021. She became the first in her family to go to college when she enrolled at Cal State San Bernardino’s Palm Desert campus.
“Transitioning into college was honestly really hard, especially after coming from a year of remote learning,” she said. “I think during that year I lost the foundational skills I had in school.”
Professors expected high-level work but didn’t always help students struggling with pandemic learning loss, she said.
“The professors didn’t really capture the idea that these students might need more help and support, because of the fact that they weren’t learning in a regular environment for the past year and a half,” Banda said.
The social disruption was even worse: “I’m naturally a shy person, so transitioning from a year full of almost no social communication to being back in the classroom and having to make these relationships and friendships work was really, really hard.”
Getting a campus job at the social services office got her out of her shell. In that role she had to engage with other students but noticed many weren’t receptive.
“People just generally weren’t comfortable having regular conversations anymore,” Banda said. “They would avoid eye contact and get nervous.”
Banda is scheduled to graduate in spring 2026 and plans to pursue a master’s degree and a career as a hospital social worker. The tough lessons of the pandemic will guide her work, she said.
“Seeing how much people genuinely can struggle, and how limited help is, going into social work I’m going to keep that in my head,” she said. “I’m always going to try to the best of my ability to help people.”
Bringing back campus life
Reestablishing campus culture and student life might seem like a lower priority than boosting academic performance in the wake of the pandemic, but university leaders say they’re intertwined. Without connections to classmates and professors, students feel less committed to college.
“Students don’t have the will to stay in school if they don’t feel connected to the campus,” Davidson-Boyd, of Cal State San Bernardino, said. “We saw a rise in dropout rates, and we know that doesn’t just have to do with academics, but connectability to campus as well.”
First year continuation rates for the campus fell, from almost 85% for students who started in 2019 to 78% for those who started in 2020 and 80% for those who started in 2021.
While universities typically encourage students to take a full course load and push through challenging classes, Cal State San Bernardino tried to keep students in school by making it easier for them to drop classes without penalties.
Most students who tried to withdraw from classes but couldn’t do so wound up failing anyway. After two failed classes, many gave up, Davidson-Boyd said: “This was a way to give them an out so they feel like they have more agency over the process.”
Even after pandemic restrictions loosened, campuses continued virtual instruction for some classes and kept dorms at reduced occupancy.
