This May Be the Worst Season of Summer Melt in Memory. Here’s How Some Colleges Are Fighting It.

This article was made possible with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Isaiah Delgado worked hard in high school, determined to prove that he could keep pace with his more privileged peers. This spring, he graduated summa cum laude from the International Baccalaureate program, with plans to study journalism at the University of Central Florida, one of the nation’s largest colleges. His dream is to work for ESPN — he loves sports, and admires the athletes who “use the platform for social change.”

But with Covid-19 cases spiking in his home state, Delgado (above) has decided to stay home instead, and take classes at the nearby College of Central Florida, a former community college. He’s worried that his classes at the university would wind up online, and it doesn’t make sense to “pay Orlando prices if I’m going to wind up at my house still,” he said. The college will cost him a third of what the university would.

Still, the decision stings. “I was trying to set the example for my sister and half-siblings,” said Delgado, whose mother, a bartender, lost her job when the virus struck, and now works with him at a Publix supermarket. His parents had him when they were young, and never attended college.

“It hurt the ego, I’m not going to lie,” he said. “To see all the people I kept up with branch off and still do everything, and know I’m going to stay local at the college I didn’t need to do all the fancy things for.”

Delgado is one of thousands of students reconsidering their college plans, in what many enrollment officials fear will be the worst season of “summer melt” in memory. Some are finding that they can no longer afford their first choice; others are questioning whether an online or hybrid education is worth the price of an in-person one. Some are staying home out of concerns for their health, or the health of family members.

In a national survey conducted this spring, one in six high-school seniors who before the pandemic expected to attend a four-year college full time said that they will choose a different path this fall. A majority expected either to take a gap year or enroll part time in a bachelor’s program (35 percent each), while smaller percentages planned to work or attend a community college.

In Florida, where the outbreak decimated the hospitality and retail sectors, one in four parents of high-school juniors and seniors reported that their child had changed their plans, a separate survey found.

As with many effects of this pandemic, the phenomenon is hitting people of color the hardest. More than 40 percent of minority high-school seniors have said it’s very likely they won’t go to college in the fall, or that it’s too soon to say, compared with 24 percent of white seniors.

That troubles advocates like Nicole Hurd, who worry the pandemic will undo years of progress in raising college enrollment and completion rates among low-income students and students of color.

Armando Solares for The Chronicle

“We’re very concerned that this could be the least diverse class to matriculate in decades,” said Hurd, the founder and chief executive of College Advising Corps.

Ultimately, many of these students may find a way to finance a four-year program, or decide that a virtual college is better than no college at all. Indeed, many colleges now say they’re on target to match last fall’s enrollment numbers.

But if even half of them put off college, or switch to a two-year institution, the repercussions will reverberate broadly, affecting not only the students themselves, but the economy at large. Research shows that students who delay enrollment, study part-time, or start at a community college are far less likely to graduate from college than those who enroll in a four-year college immediately, and attend full time. Lacking a degree, they’re more likely to get stuck in low- and middle-wage jobs.

If students of color are overrepresented among those who change their plans, the consequences will be even more severe. Students of color — and Latino students, in particular — are higher education’s growth engine, accounting for an increasing share of enrollment. Between 2000 and 2018, Latino undergraduate enrollment at four-year colleges grew by nearly 150 percent, and Black enrollment grew by 40 percent, while the number of white students shrank slightly, federal data show.

So colleges and access groups are scrambling to keep students on track, through scholarships, free summer courses, and virtual hand-holding. They’re sending a torrent of text messages, employing chatbots to answer students’ questions about the fall, and using upperclassmen as mentors to build bridges to campus. And they’re reminding low-income and first-generation students that in an economic downturn, a college degree matters more than ever.

“We have to keep the pipeline open for Latinx and other diverse students,” said David Ortiz, senior vice president for operations at the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. “We have to make sure they make it to campus, with either the step of a foot or the click of a mouse.”

Connections Lost ‘in the Snap of a Finger’

There’s never a good time for a global pandemic, but the new coronavirus came to the United States at a particularly inopportune moment in the annual admissions cycle. March, the month when most colleges shut down, is when many seniors are in the thick of reviewing award letters and deciding which colleges they can afford to attend. It’s a critical window in which decisions get made and support is needed the most, said Kim Cook, executive director of the National College Attainment Network.

When colleges closed suddenly, her members had to pivot to counseling via text, phone, and e-mail. Some students were too overwhelmed by the abrupt change in their routine to respond; others lacked computers or reliable internet access.

“In the snap of a finger, programs lost their ability to see a student in school every day — to talk to them, and sometimes, to nag them,” Cook said.

Meanwhile, economic fallout from the pandemic was devastating family finances, setting the stage for a summer of difficult decisions. By April, nearly 17 percent of Black workers and 19 percent of Hispanic workers were unemployed, federal data show.

With so many students and parents out of work, rates of hunger and homelessness soared. A survey conducted by the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice between mid-April and mid-May found that nearly three in five college students were experiencing basic-needs insecurity. The rates were higher among Black (71 percent) and Hispanic (67 percent) students than white ones (52 percent).

“Melt,” a term used to describe students who commit to a college but don’t show up for classes — isn’t a new phenomenon. Each year, 10 to 20 percent of students who made an enrollment deposit in the spring “melt” over the summer, derailed by an onslaught of forms and financial challenges. Courting students over the summer even once they’ve accepted admission has become common practice.

But signs suggest that this season’s melt could become a flood. In addition to the surveys that show that students are re-evaluating their plans, Fafsa filings have been disappointing. Through June 26, the number of high-school seniors who had completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid — a key indicator of their intent to enroll — was down 3.5 percent year-over-year, with close to 75,000 fewer seniors completing the form, according to an analysis by the National College Attainment Network. In Florida, less than half the senior class has completed the form.

Faced with such grim surveys and statistics, many colleges took steps this spring to stem the expected enrollment decline, extending deposit deadlines, waiving fees, and scrapping standardized-testing requirements.

Now, colleges and access groups in Florida and nationwide have moved into a second, even more challenging, phase: keeping students enrolled.

In mid-June, the University of South Florida announced that it would provide $20 million in scholarships to help incoming and current students affected by the pandemic start or stay in college. The university is also asking its peer mentors to reach out to all 5,000 enrolled freshmen over the summer, to help them feel connected to the campus community. Normally, that work would wait until students arrived on campus.

“We’ve got a Category 5 hurricane hitting Tampa,” said Paul Dosal, vice president for student success, referring to the pandemic. “We better do everything possible to support our students.”

Other colleges, including Tallahassee Community College, are offering free summer courses to enrolled freshmen, as a way of engaging them early. And some, recognizing the critical role that campus visits play in eventual enrollment, have started offering in-person tours to small groups of accepted students, so they can finally set foot on campus.

Colleges are also encouraging students to appeal their financial-aid awards if their circumstances have changed since they filed the Fafsa. In a June survey by the National Association for Student Financial Aid Administrators, half of respondents said they’d seen an uptick in the number of requests that awards be re-evaluated — a process known as “professional judgment.”

College-access groups, many of which would normally have wrapped up their work by now, are sticking with students through the summer. They’re using chatbots to text students and answer their basic questions; they’re connecting freshmen with returning students who can describe what life is like on campus; and they’re creating cohorts of students attending the same college, so they can start building community now.

Above all, they’re asking low-income and first-generation students who are considering putting off college to recall the reason many of them worked so hard to get into it the first place: to lift themselves, and their families, into the middle class.

“Let’s talk it out, but let’s not forget the long-term goal,” said Nick Watson, program lead for CollegePoint, a virtual advising program for high-achieving, low-income students. “What’s the payoff?”

Will It Work?

It won’t be clear for another couple months if these efforts worked, but several of the strategies being tried have proved effective in other contexts.

Studies show that students who feel connected to their colleges are more likely to stay enrolled, and research suggests that texting admitted students reminders of looming deadlines and missing documents, and engaging them through Chatbots, can help to mitigate summer melt.

But those interventions are reaching only a segment of at-risk students, and efforts to scale them nationally have yielded disappointing results.

“They’re innovative, good responses, but they’re tough to bring to scale quickly, with the world turned upside down,” Cook said.

That means that personalized attention to students — what Cook calls “good, old-fashioned legwork” will have to remain a key part of any college’s melt-reduction strategy. Students who are worried about the risks of attending college in a pandemic will need human reassurance, and those who have been affected by job loss will need hands-on help applying for additional aid.

Cook urged colleges to “be proactive and invite conversations about changes to aid packages,” even if you don’t have institutional dollars to spare; your students still might qualify for additional federal aid.

Colleges will also have to work harder than ever to cultivate a sense of belonging among their students of color. With the nation roiled by police brutality and civil unrest, it’s important that Black students, in particular, feel welcome on campus, said Craig Robinson, president of College Possible, a nonprofit that uses near-peer mentoring to get students to enroll and persist in college.

Most importantly, they’ll need to communicate their plans for the fall, even if they still aren’t entirely sure what those plans will be, Hurd said.

“We’re starting to see some students who feel like they haven’t heard from their campuses in awhile, and that’s one reason summer melt happens,” she said. “They start thinking that their college doesn’t care about them.”

Pay attention to the parents, too, said Deborah Santiago, chief executive of Excelencia in Education. Latina/o students tend to make college-going decisions as a family. (One upside of the pandemic’s shelter-at-home requirements has been that it has been easier for counselors to reach parents, Hurd noted.)

Even with all these efforts, it’s likely colleges will experience more melt than usual this year, for several reasons.

First, there is the economy. With unemployment rates lingering in the double-digits, it’s inevitable that some students will have to set aside college to work to support their families.

“At some point, as much as you value education, it has to take a back seat to having food on the table,” Santiago said.

Then there is the uncertainty surrounding the fall. With so much up in the air, some students have placed deposits at multiple colleges as a way of hedging their bets. If a college decides to remain entirely online, they may opt to go elsewhere.

And with some colleges now saying they won’t refund students’ housing costs if their campuses close because of the pandemic, some students will undoubtedly decide to stay home, or postpone their enrollment.

Zack Wittman for The Chronicle

Faith Pinamang, who graduated from A.P. Leto High School, in Tampa, this spring, is one of them. She’d planned to live on campus at Florida State University this fall, but now she’s leaning toward staying in Tampa and studying online instead.

Though it will be harder to build relationships with her peers and professors remotely, Pinamang is confident she’ll be OK.

“I prefer in person — I like to interact with other people and teachers,” said Pinamang. “But I think I can still be successful.”

Cultural factors could also contribute to this season’s potentially historic melt. Latino students, who tend to value close family ties, and often live in multigenerational households, may stay home to protect elderly relatives from infection, Santiago said. They might also stick around to care for siblings who are out of school, as Daphne Mendoza has decided to do.

Mendoza, who graduated from Florida’s Strawberry Crest High School this spring, had planned to attend the University of Central Florida, like Delgado, this fall. But with her dad working long hours on a construction site, she’s going to take classes at Hillsborough Community College instead, so she can help her younger siblings with their online classes if their schools remain closed.

“They struggled a lot last year, so I think it would be better if I stayed home and did everything I could to help my family out,” she said.

Delgado, meanwhile, is coming to terms with his decision to start at a small local college. His family keeps reminding him that “it’s not about the right now, it’s about the long run.” He said he’s certain he’ll make it to Orlando eventually.

This story is part of a series, Broken Ladder, examining the role of higher education in social mobility. It was made possible by a grant of $149,994 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has no role in our editorial decision-making.