Episode 016 – How Did COVID-19 Affect College Students’ Learning and Financial Stability?

[0:00:00 Speaker 0] The following podcast was recorded on May 6 2021. In this episode, we discussed how the covid 19 pandemic affected the educational experiences of texas college students as well as review pertinent information about vaccine distribution. We want to acknowledge that the CDC COVID-19 guidelines keep evolving. So some of the information reviewed during the recording may be out of date. We highly encourage everyone to visit the CDC website to review the latest information on the COVID-19 pandemic prevention guidelines and vaccines. And now back to our regularly scheduled program, enjoy. Mm hmm. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. You’re listening to latin experts. A podcast of latino studies at the University of texas at Austin. Latin experts features the voices of faculty staff and students as well as friends and alumni of the department of mexican american and Latina latino studies the latino Research Institute and the Center for Mexican american Studies. Join us for this episode of latin experts. Okay. Mhm. Mhm, mm. Mhm. Hello, my name is Vanessa do studies. I’m a research associate with the latino Research institute at the University of texas at Austin. I’m joined today by my colleagues from the institute, Alice Villatoro. Hi everyone. And marisol Mcdaniel. Hello, Alice is a research assistant professor and marisol is a post doctoral fellow at the institute. Today we’re going to discuss how COVID-19 impacted educational experiences and outcomes among Latin X. College students in Texas. Full disclosure, we are all public health researchers. My research focuses on obesity prevention, Alice research centers around mental health care, access and stigma. And marissa was research focuses on food insecurity and the built environment. So why are we public health researchers talking about education? Well, I will tell you health is undeniably linked to education. Americans with more education live longer. They tend to get better jobs with higher income, which means they have resources for good health. That means they can more easily by healthy foods, have more time to exercise and pay for health services. And these are just some of the many ways that education is linked to health. So what does education look like among Latinos? And specifically, what does college education look like? The most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics show that college enrollment for latino undergraduate and graduate students more than doubled in the U. S. Over the past two decades. So, for example, the number of Hispanic students who enrolled as an undergraduate increased from 1.4 million to 3.2 million over that time period. But despite the overall increase in enrollment, the number of latino students graduating with a degree from a higher education institution is much lower than non latino white students, only about a quarter of latino students graduate with a degree compared to almost half of white students. Additionally, latino and black students are less likely to continue on to their second year college than asian and white students. And this is across public private four year and two your institutions. So this difference in college graduation rates between latino students and non latino white students is what is known as an achievement gap and the reasons for this achievement gap are complex. There are many reasons why Latinos are struggling to obtain a college education. Latinos are disproportionately poor living in low income communities where the schools aren’t preparing Children for college courses as they enter adulthood, many are supporting their families and don’t have the luxury to focus on schoolwork. And many are the first in their families to attempt a degree, so they don’t understand how to best navigate the college system. We know that the COVID-19 pandemic has overwhelmingly affected health and financial stability of Latinos in Texas and across the us. And this is true for Latino college students as well. Yeah. And if you’d like more information about how Covid 19 impacted texas college students, health and well being, you can check out our first episode in this series. How is covid 19 affecting texas college students and what can we do about it? That’s episode eight of the latin experts podcast. And this was a shameless plug. A super fun listen. So a entertaining, very yes, it should come as no surprise then that the covid 19 pandemic has impacted latino college students, educational plans and experiences. So marisa, let’s get to the meat of the matter. Would you tell us a little bit about how the pandemic has affected latino students plans and experiences related to education here in texas? Well, for latino college students, um, changing higher education structure, especially the change from in person to virtual learning, um, created many additional challenges for all higher education students. And we’re seeing even in other national surveys that the gap between the low income students and more food and students, that gap is even more stark among online classes. So having the space to engage in online class in your home, having digital access literally not. Maybe you don’t even have internet access in your house, you can’t even log in for your virtual class. And as well as just kind of that that disconnected communication between the student and the teacher is more stark for latino students. So when you say that communication difference between latino students and professors is more start, can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah. So it’s, I mean, even in the classroom, even within in person learning, it can be difficult for students who are considered part of marginalized communities to even come up to their professor to ask them for help. Can you imagine trying to do that in the online world? Um some people think like, oh yeah, you can talk better on online world, but then you’re starting to really question what’s in your email by asking the right question, second guessing yourself that imposter syndrome coming up even more for latino students. Yeah, I definitely understand not wanting to speak on a zoom call. I have so many meetings per day, it’s like the more I can sit back and listen the better. So if I were a student in class, I probably wouldn’t be speaking up too much either. Yeah, no, it makes sense. And just piggybacking what marisol was just talking about. And another shameless plug to our existing survey that examined the well being of texas college students last summer. So we get the L. R. I. Did this quick little online survey to kind of get a sense of what College students were experiencing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and see how it affected their educational plans. Because Marissa was right. We went from In person instruction to now everything being remote. Some college students, especially if they were like new freshmen had to decide whether or not they were going to start their academic year or whether they were going to defer a year to kind of in hopes of getting that in person college experience in 2021. But you know, we seem to find that covid not only impacted well being and health but it also impacted educational plans. Especially for latino students where we see that they experienced lower G. P. A. Than expected. A lot of them had to change their graduation plans like pushing it back. Or even just being in that remote space. Being able to find motivation or ability to complete the coursework because maybe you have issues with internet connectivity or you have to take care of your family members at home. It became a challenge. Um So students were reporting having to do more course work sometimes after moving to remote classes. And then some students felt that they were receiving less support from their professors especially female and undergraduate students. So all of these things take a toll on their educational experiences and how well they’re doing. And it was important for us to kind of assess that. Yeah definitely. It probably just exacerbates the already existing achievement gap. Um So I would be surprised if some of the graduation rates for latino students decline even more after last year. Also, if you’re thinking about just education to get education, you also need to live, you need to be able to have somewhere to stay, you also need to have money. Um and undergrads were more likely to be negatively impacted financially because of the covid pandemic, nine times more likely to report lost on campus jobs. Um, And we think that this was because of our sample, We had a lot of grad students and undergrads students, graduate students probably had a research oriented position or something where they can do something from home versus students may have had like library positions or somewhere where they’re more front facing to the public and so they lost all their jobs. So this could be their work study, This could be just more debt and that’s sad there undergrads and they’re no longer able to fully support themselves because they lost their job. Um in addition, 67% were living home with family and family can include younger siblings. So at the beginning of the pandemic, during I guess april may the end of the school year, I mean all the little ones to, we’re doing online classes. So we have college students that are helping their younger siblings navigate this online learning environment while also they themselves trying to navigate. And can you imagine having like five or six devices if you happen to have internet on at the same time how that would feel? And can you imagine how many times they may have lost connection? Well while in class um feel like you’re backing dial up days yet. Yes. Um And staticky noise in the back. Oh my gosh, get away. 15 minutes. Yeah, I just want to Yeah. Yeah. We had to dial into the internet point, make sure nobody else was using the phone because oh my gosh, someone was on the phone. You couldn’t use the internet. We have so progressed, so progress anyway. Our struggles Exactly, exactly. Money so please continue. I like it. I like it. Um And and and the past just financial um so people were dealing with mental, mental health issues or just not feeling well, not being able to be around their friends, um feeling isolated really. Um And institutions were not supporting students. Undergraduates were more likely to report their institution, not providing sufficient emotional, mental wellbeing resources. And many students were not even aware if their institution provided those resources. Yeah, I think that’s a real important thing to highlight might be solved because, you know, I think institutions tried to do their best to provide resources, but it was the dissemination of those resources that maybe didn’t reach all students. And so I wasn’t surprised that so many students in our survey indicated that they were just unaware of what kind of support services that were available to them. And it might not be so surprising that they were unaware, given kind of the transition that they were experiencing a lot of students. Well, every student pretty much that was living on campus had to vacate the premises, right? So, you know, it could be, the university’s didn’t even know necessarily the best way to reach some of these students. Again, if they don’t have internet at their home, then they’re not able to access information online. Um, and it’s not like, well, I’m not sure, but they might not have left a forwarding address, right, so began have been nailed. So based on the findings from the study, it appears that Undergraduate students were highly impacted with regard to their educational plans, um their motivation, ability to complete coursework as well as their financial stability, right? nine times more likely to lose an on campus job. That’s a huge statistic there. And these students were also unaware of particularly emotional, mental wellbeing resources that the institutions were providing for them during this time. And so we know that institutions are gearing up to open back up in the fall and we’re trying to have as normal a fall semester as possible. So what what do you think that these institutions should be doing to prepare to provide more support to these students? I think that one of the things that was most alarming about our findings was that lost of a job campus job and I have to give props to the L. R. I. First and foremost because we did everything we could to keep our students employed throughout the lockdowns. So we were, I’m so proud that we were able to keep all of our undergraduate students who work with us employed even now. Like I don’t think anybody lost a job if they did it was because they were graduating and we’re leaving the institution, which is different scenario because it was going to happen regardless of covid. But you know, the work that they were engaging in allowed them to continue to engage in research related jobs and do it from home. But a lot of students don’t have that luxury. Like marisol mentioned those front facing positions like if you’re at a library working the front desk or if maybe you’re working at a food place at the student union. Those are opportunities where you might not be able to work from home because it involves being there in person. So thinking about, you know, what sort of financial support we can provide to the students. If there is another surge coming up in the fall, we don’t know if there will be or won’t be, but I think we should be prepared nonetheless. Unfortunately, many of these students were not eligible for the first round of stimulus checks because they were considered dependence and so they were not getting that money in their own pockets. So, you know, schools have been crafty enough to figure out ways to financially support their students. So, like, Ny you for instance, they were continuing to pay their student workers through the end of the spring semester. Last year, ST Louis University was continuing to pay work study students regardless of whether they worked. And they gave them the non work study students, like a stipend for, you know, not being able to work on campus and then, you know, so we when we think about these these things on how to deal with financial crises of students, um thinking about how institutions can step in to support these students during an emergency or crisis such as covid 19. You know, I think it would be a good next step to have kind of in our back pocket in case there is another lockdown of sorts that we need to consider. And also, I’m thinking of, I mean, in addition to the financial resources, those emotional mental wellbeing resources and I just thought like a really cool if students, I don’t know if they’ll be able to necessarily provide the counseling, but they can be trained on how to help other students navigate those resources. That there’s a job right there that the university can keep up and continue to fund during pandemics like this or any type of major event where students needs emotional, mental wellbeing support. Certain institutions already are requiring vaccines versus other institutions are highly recommending the vaccine. So it’s important for you to know what your institution is doing before you start the fall semester because you don’t want to be, you know, registering for courses, playing, you’re paying your tuition and then find out that you can’t attend classes because you didn’t get your vaccine. Um, so I think it’s important that everyone double check their institutions policy regardless of what institutions are doing. I’m of the mindset that we all should get vaccinated if we can get vaccinated. Yes, I highly agree with that. Um, everyone should go get vaccinated and continue to follow the CDC guidelines definitely in that camp with you. Um, but what would you all say to people who might be hesitant about getting a vaccine? Well, I just got my vaccine two days ago. My second vaccine. The thank you. The vaccine that everyone dreads and I did as well. Um, but guess what? I dread more Getting COVID 19 and being out for more than one day. It wasn’t nice. Yesterday. I did not feel well. Um, I was a little bit, I had like a brain fog and felt like maybe again coming down with a small cold. But today I feel great. So one day versus two weeks, one week of not feeling well. I think it’s worth it. So That’s what I said. Two people were hesitant. I think that, um, and I think some people are hesitant because of the side effects and the side effects of the vaccine are a lot less severe than the actual, um, COVID-19 symptoms money. So may I ask which vaccine did you get? And I got the dreaded Moderna and in a way lasted one day. Why dreaded? Because people think Moderna has has the worst side effects. Yeah. It’s funny how you mentioned how people are not criticizing but judging your Moderna vaccine. Because I feel like everyone that I know that’s been vaccinated and we’re like, okay, are you team Fighter Team Moderna? And then it’s like the fighter game versus the Moderna gang just hilarious because I don’t know why. But I think there is this perception that Pfizer is better. But when you look at the three vaccines that are currently available in terms of their effectiveness in preventing laboratory confirmed covid 19 Pfizer and Moderna are pretty similar. It’s statistically speaking, they wouldn’t be statistically different from each other. So Fighters 95% effective versus Madonna is 94% effective. And then we have Johnson and Johnson which we’ve all seen in the news because they paused distribution for a little while after. There were six cases out of seven million. I should note uh people who received the johnson and johnson vaccine who were experiencing blood clots and after further investigation, they found that the johnson and johnson that this side effect was so rare that it was still safe to distribute this vaccine, johnson and johnson and like Moderna and Fighter only involved one dose Pfizer and Moderna involved two doses. But johnson and johnson, the one dose is only 66.3% effective in preventing laboratory confirmed covid 19 illness. So, you know, if you’re not, if you’re too busy and if you’re not interested in in doing two doses or you’re concerned about maybe the second dose, creating more, I don’t know, side effects because typically that’s what happens is that the second doses where you might feel slightly worse side effects than the first dose, then maybe johnson and johnson is your thing, just one and done. So, you know, I think, I think I think people should consider what’s best for them. I had the Pfizer vaccine and I can say that the worst symptoms I felt or side effects I felt was arm pain, just kind of sore arm for like a good three or four days. Um it kind of felt like the tetanus shot life. If you all over call the tetanus shot, it’s quite painful and you can’t move your arm. Remember as a kid, I couldn’t lift my arm up because it was just too sore and too painful. The government scene was nothing like that. But it reminded me of the tetanus shot in a way because I remember it was just a little, you know, tight intense, but nothing I didn’t I didn’t get any chills or fever. Um, and I did feel a little bit a little bit tired after the second dose, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of the vaccine or because I was just so exhausted from work. You know, it could be what it’s so hard to tell, you know, and what you learn in public health is that correlation is not causation. So, you know, just because I got the vaccine doesn’t mean that the tiredness was due to the vaccine. Sure. Yeah. So what do you say that uh, The COVID-19 vaccine is should be less dreaded than the tetanus shot? Is that the moral of the story? I think so, and definitely less dreaded than the illness itself. For sure. Because you don’t know, I mean you may think that you’re healthy and that you will probably beat this thing. But you don’t know that for certain. So you know, if you don’t know your medical history that well, don’t gamble getting Covid, you know, just get vaccinated and like marisol said it only it’s probably one day of being uncomfortable and that’s fine. Um, but we understand that not everyone can get vaccinated and so it’s important that as many people who can get vaccinated do get vaccinated in order for us to achieve herd immunity. And here in Texas, I mean we’re already at 50% of the population has received at least one does. So we’re getting there. Y’all. I think that’s I mean I was just looking this is a as of May 5th according to K. X. A. N. And the texas, Department of State Health Services. I think that’s awesome for texas to have. Everyone has at least windows 50%. But that’s nowhere close to what herd immunity would be. Um so we still need, so people still need to go out and get a vaccine. Yeah. And they just don’t go and get just one dose of the Pfizer and Moderna go get both doses because otherwise the vaccine won’t be effective. Again if you’re only interested in a one and done vaccine then get the johnson and johnson. Yeah. And you know right now supply kind of outweighs demand. There’s been a little bit of a dip in the number of people going to get the vaccine. So if you were to go get it right now, like just go out the door, get in your car, drive in place, they probably have, you know, something for you. So while you’re listening to this podcast, keep it on. But get in your car and listen to us while you can get the vaccine and then afterwards go get a free uh crispy cream doughnut because they’re giving out free doughnuts to anyone who has the Covid vaccine. So what better reason to get vaccinated then to one prevent illness and to get yourself a nice donut. And I think they’re doing it every day. Like you can get one every day of the year. Pretty much yeah, every day for the rest of this year, I still want to get to get my doughnut. I need to I need to go get my donut. But so the moral of the story. The story is when it comes to the vaccine, all of the approved vaccines, Moderna Pfizer, johnson and johnson, they’re all safe. They’re effective and they significantly reduce your risk of severe illness. And if you want more information about which vaccine is right for you, then we highly encourage you to go to the CDC website to read more about each vaccine. They’ll provide you with the data in terms of how effective they are, what side effects are associated with each vaccine. And then they’ll provide specific information about who should and shouldn’t get this particular vaccine. So go ahead and do your homework before you go. And then just no, as Vanessa mentioned, There’s more supply than there is demand. So you shouldn’t have a problem getting a vaccine appointment. And now everyone over the age of 16 is eligible to receive the vaccine and it’s absolutely free. So no excuses. That’s right. So let’s say someone is like they’re convinced they need to go get a vaccine not only to prevent illness for themselves but also to prevent spreading the disease to other people who may be unable to get the vaccine. But let’s say this person super convinced, but they have a family member or a friend that is kind of on the fence. So what would be the best strategies that people could use um, to talk with friends and families about the vaccine? I think definitely sharing with them how effective they are getting personal personal on your own experience with the vaccine, especially if you’ve already taken it. For example, I think if you can go with your family member to to get the vaccine, so my sister offered up for services to my aunt and said, I’ll go with you if you’re scared, I’ll go with you and I’ll be there with you as you get the vaccine. And my idea was like so excited about that, You know, having the support of somebody because I think a lot of people just scared and if you’re there as moral support, that’s wonderful. I can share so many stories. When I was volunteering at the COVID-19 vaccine clinic on campus, I was in the observation center, so I was looking after people who had just gotten their vaccine, just double checking that no one had any adverse reactions. And I would ask people sitting down like, oh, how are you doing? You need any, you know, any water or whatever. Um, there are many people that were like, oh, no, no, no. I didn’t come to get the vaccine. I already have it. I just came here for moral support. And there was one family, it was both parents and all their Children where there with them, their adult Children where there with them as moral support. You know, and I think that’s great if that helps your family member or friend get help, go with them. I think that that’s something very special and it helps reduce the fear. Yeah. Yeah. And just thinking of, I guess it depends on who you’re talking to. If it’s I mean you can be a personal, like how you experience the vaccine. It could be thinking of just changing how we are moving through life right now. So if you have a problem with wearing masks, you want you want people to stop wearing masks, then we need to get vaccinated. Um if you’re if you are sitting at home and tired of being at home, then one way to for us to all be back to our quote unquote normal of our pre covid one major step towards that would be getting a vaccine and as well as making sure that everyone around you is vaccinated. Yeah. And one thing to know is that the vaccine isn’t fully effective until two weeks after the recommended dosage. So if you take the fighter and the moderna two weeks after your second dose, then your immunity is in full bloom or whatever it is. So basically what you’re saying is don’t go out partying the day of to celebrate your second dose because you’re not ready spreading or catching it. Yeah. Or catching it. Exactly. You’re not ready yet. You know, So it was just two more weeks. But you know what’s great and I don’t know, Marissa still has a few days left before. She’s the two weeks period have Come up after her. 2nd does, it’s been maybe like over two months now for me since I’ve got my second dose. But I got to see my grandma for the first time in almost a year and a half two years uh in person without mass. And this lady is 90 years old and I felt great being able to see her without fear of getting her sick or putting her life at risk. And that’s one thing the vaccine could grant you is the ability to reconnect with loved ones that you have been unable to see or hug because of the pandemic. It’s quite powerful and I have to say that again like what Marie so suggested the one day of feeling uncomfortable from the vaccine is worth it compared to being sick or compared to being scared of getting your family members sick or ill definitely. So overall getting vaccinated is extremely important not only to protect your health, the health of others and to get back to a sense of normalcy in our social lives. Getting vaccinated is also important to get back to normalcy when we when we talk about education. So going back to the beginning of our discussion, COVID-19 had a huge impact on Latin X. College students educational outcomes. Um just to kind of recap a little bit latin X students were more likely to state that there G. P. A. Was lower than expected. Their motivation and ability to complete courts work was impacted, their graduation plans were delayed and many students, particularly undergrads were losing on campus jobs. And so in order to get back to normal educational experiences, people need to get vaccinated, not that we want to go back to the status quo of the achievement gap between latin X students and white students. Um but by getting vaccinated, getting back to a quote unquote, normal campus experience, we’ll be able to focus on other issues that contribute to the achievement gap and won’t be distracted by the pandemic. Mhm. Yeah. So moral of the story is get your vaccine, folks, protect yourself, protect your loved ones and they can start working on closing achievement gas. We can start working on other things that we were we were working on. Um but we had to kind of switch gears to deal with this one crisis. Um And it’s time to go back to just working on real life. Rolling up our sleeves. Yeah, rolling up our sleeves and solving these disparities that we see in education and health and everything else. So we have our work cut ahead a kind of head for us. So um yeah, vaccines. The first start. Yeah. All right guys, Thanks so much for joining me for this discussion today about Latinos and education and specifically covid 19 impact on Latinos. Education before we go, I’d like to let everyone know that we will be sending out another survey to assess the impact of Covid 19 on students health, well being and educational experiences. Later this month it’s been about a year since the covid 19 pandemic. Shut everything down and we want to know how people are faring now as compared to last summer at the beginning of the pandemic. And so be on the lookout for this survey and we definitely hope to hear from you. Yes, please do. If you see it being shared by your institution, please complete it because this information would be so helpful to provide some evidence to institutions on some of the things that we need to do to improve the lives of undergraduate and graduate students. So please participate and we would greatly appreciate it. All right, everyone till next time. All right. All right. Remember to get vaccinated. Yes. Get vaccinated, then get a doughnut. Bye bye. Hi. All this is Ashley novel. Montero’s The Communications Associate a latino studies. Thank you for listening to this week’s episode. Make sure to check out the latino studies instagram page. Follow us at Latino Studies. You teak to keep the conversation going