Frank A. Boyd, Ph.D.
Frank Boyd is Vice President of the Higher Education Practice at McAllister & Quinn. Frank brings 26 years of experience in higher education as a faculty member and academic administrator.
It’s the start of the fall semester, when students and faculty arrive on campuses across the country, and where faculty and staff will be working furiously to help with their transition to campus. Student affairs professionals will focus on creating a sense of connection and support for their students, a process made more challenging as colleges and universities sort through the lingering effects of the COVID pandemic. Only a very small percentage of college-aged students have long-term physical symptoms from the coronavirus, but COVID-era students spent part of their high school or junior high years in various states of isolation, creating environmental conditions that have burdened them with some lasting challenges.
Institutions must respond, but how? Even before the advent of COVID, colleges and universities faced a growing set of financial challenges that will constrain the capacity of schools to address the particular needs of Gen C, a moniker that is used to describe pandemic-era high school and college students. Thus, institutional leaders must at once assess the needs of these students, design programs to address them, and secure the resources necessary for implementation. It is these twin challenges—designing programs to support these students and identifying the resources for implementation—that will be important for presidents and chief academic officers for the immediate future. This work will be resource-intensive and will proceed at a time when schools have exhausted their COVID-era support.
The idea of a “generation” is ubiquitous in popular culture, which is remarkable given that Karl Mannheim developed the theory of generations less than a century ago. “Baby Boomers,” “Gen X,” and “Millennials” are all terms that are used to describe a cohort of people who share a similar cultural, economic, and social experiences.
So, who is Generation C? Put simply, Gen C is the group of young people who were students during the pandemic and who experienced an abrupt change in their environment and lived experience. These environmental conditions have had direct implications for youth mental health and behavior, accelerating the mental health crisis for young people that predated the pandemic.
There is now an expansive body of research that focuses on how the pandemic affected student learning for the members of Gen C, and faculty who served as instructors during the 2020-21 academic year—myself among them–will attest to the challenges faced by these college students. I was one of the thousands of faculty members who converted traditional course syllabi into virtual courses with only a few months’ notice. When courses began in August of 2020, students were obviously struggling with the abrupt changes at home and at school. Four years later we understand much more about the implications of the pandemic for Gen C, with scholars and clinicians identifying a number of shared characteristics.
Some Challenges of Gen C and Federal Grant Resources that can Help
Increased mental health issues.
This is the big one. Basic indicators of mental health for youth were worsening before the pandemic, with increases in depression and anxiety, suicidal ideation, and a persistent sense of being disconnected. In fact, the percentage of college-aged students who are prescribed antidepressant medication doubled in the decade preceding the pandemic, from 8% to 15.3%. The percentages of youth experiencing these challenges dramatically increased as COVID-related measures spread. By 2024, 35% of students had considered leaving their college program, and 67% of those who considered leaving cite mental health concerns as their top reason.
Many members of Gen C will require enhanced mental health services to persist in pursuing their undergraduate degree. For institutions that are able, investments of resources can address the particular needs of students and can forestall the attrition of students who might otherwise drop out. At McAllister & Quinn, we work with a number of schools who have applied for and received federal funding to support this work. One program offered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) is the GLS Campus Suicide Prevention Grant, which offers funds to enhance mental health services for all students. Specifically, SAMSHA funding equips campuses to better identify students who need support and to build programs to support them.
Students sense of belonging.
Related to the broader mental health issues is the effect of isolation on students’ sense of belonging. Scholars have long identified the importance of an individual’s connection with others, and a sense that they are an integrated part of a larger collective. Isolation, then, can severely disrupt an individual’s sense of belonging, and the pandemic had strong and persistent impact on college students. All of the outcomes that are important for colleges—student learning, mental health challenges, persistence, retention, etc.–are negatively correlated with an individual’s sense of belonging.
Since student success might depend on this important dimension of campus life, institutions are actively investing in programs that connect students to each other and to the institution. Integrated advising programs, peer mentoring, enhanced mental health services are all examples of campus programs that can be effective at promoting a student’s sense of belonging.
Family economic pressures.
The abrupt slowdown—and in many cases shutdown—of the economy created tremendous uncertainty for families. Unsurprisingly, the financial toll of the pandemic has been more profoundly felt by Pell-eligible families than by those with higher incomes. These students have reported higher levels of anxiety about their family’s finances, and their rate of attrition from college has been demonstrably higher than students from wealthier families.
There are a number of federal grant programs that provide scholarship funds for talented, Pell-eligible students. One example is the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Program (S-STEM) that can provide more than $1,000,000 for schools, much of which is designated as scholarships for students whose financial aid does not cover the cost of attendance.
Declining student preparedness and changing student demands.
By necessity, teachers of high school and younger students redesigned curricula to have more flexibility in order to accommodate homebound students. The desire for curricular flexibility has persisted after the pandemic’s end, and professors report ongoing challenges with student compliance for assignment deadlines and scheduled exams.
Beyond the ability to meet deadlines and adapt to more traditional instructional modes, students’ content knowledge declined precipitously during the pandemic. Graduation rates declined in the aftermath of COVID, and the test scores of students have dropped precipitously. The implications for higher education were immediate, with enrollments declining more than four percent in a trend that exacerbates the pressures faced by schools of the demographic cliff of eligible students. Moreover, retention rates of students declined overall, with larger declines in retention rates among students from underrepresented groups.
There are a number of federal grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), NSF, and other agencies that provide support for curricular innovation. There is also the Department of Education’s (DOE) Title III Strengthening Institutions Program that helps institutions increase their capacity to support underserved populations. Awards in past iterations of the Title III SIP have exceeded $2,000,000 for each institution who receives funding.
We will continue to learn more about the full impact of the pandemic on Gen C in the months and years to come; where able, colleges must provide institutional support for the particular challenges of this cohort. As noted above, the necessity of supporting students will be constrained by the financial challenges faced by many schools, so institutional leaders will be looking for resources over and above operational budgets. Federal and foundation grants can provide support for this work at a very crucial time for Gen C and for higher education, more generally.
About McAllister & Quinn
McAllister & Quinn is a premier federal grant consulting and government relations firm. Based in Washington, DC, McAllister & Quinn’s unique approach has helped clients secure over $15 billion in federal grants. For more information about the HEDS research that is referenced in this post or about how McAllister & Quinn partners with institutions, please Contact Frank Boyd to schedule a conversation.