In some places in California, gas prices are topping $6 a gallon. Across the nation, American pocketbooks are taking a hit, not only at the tank but in grocery stores and supermarkets, where inflation has led to steep increases in the prices of even basic goods.
Dr. Karen Stout
“We’re reaching inflation levels of the 1980s. This is unprecedented, historically,” says Dr. Tatiana Melguizo, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education who researches the economics of higher education. “What’s going to happen is these students, [especially those] caring for small kids or families, they have to start putting [in] more working hours in order to barely make ends meet, and as a result they will engage less in college.”
Melguizo says she worries rising inflation will compound the enrollment crisis that’s been facing community colleges and higher education as a whole since the beginning of the pandemic. Community colleges have seen an enrollment dip of about 10% nationwide since March 2020. Scholars say that the best way to help students at times like this is to get creative and find ways to produce tangible, immediate relief for students while making meaningful, intentional efforts to communicate with regards to all the resources available to help them succeed.
“We are already a stretched sector. Even before COVID and the enrollment loss, we’ve been historically underfunded, and our students have been marginalized and neglected. Now you add COVID, you add inflation, and other pressures, and an already stretched sector is trying to absorb all of this,” says Dr. Karen Stout, president of Achieving the Dream (ATD), a nonprofit network of over 300 community colleges dedicated to improving completion and removing achievement gaps.
Colleges in and outside the ATD network have come up with clever ways to provide aid to students to help them immediately. Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City, Mo., started offering free breakfast to all students at the end of February. Others, like Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, Calif., offer gas gift cards to students. Community colleges in areas with public transit often offer free or discounted transit passes.
“Many colleges are looking for ways to reduce costs of textbooks, using open education resources, doing them strategically for all students at scale,” says Stout. “You can make an immediate difference when you decide to offer free breakfast or zero cost textbooks.”
In a study of community college students after COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic conducted by the Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE) at the University of Texas at Austin found that 34% of community college students say the pandemic worsened their financial situation. That same research also found the majority of students were not aware of the many resources available to help them.
