SALEM — High school seniors whose proms, graduations and final exams were waylaid by the onset of COVID-19 in March 2020 were less likely to attend college within 16 months than students who graduated before them.

Data from the Oregon Department of Education shows that just 56% of the class of 2020 enrolled at a community college, public or private university by the fall of 2021. That’s down 7 percentage points from 2019, when the college-going rate was 63%.

Ben Cannon, director of Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission, said he wasn’t surprised by the numbers, which were released publicly earlier this month. Enrollment drops at colleges and universities during the pandemic signaled this trend, Cannon said, and the prospect of starting college online may not have appealed to students who were thrust into virtual classrooms for their last few months of senior year.

But the numbers do raise concerns, Cannon said. The state’s higher education goals hinge on 80% of young adult Oregonians achieving some kind of higher education credential by 2025.

Ushering Oregon high school graduates to college helps them and the state’s economy. Whether students earn four-year degrees or career-related community college credentials that can take as little as a year, that higher education is shown to significantly boost lifetime earnings. And states with a higher share of college-educated adults attract the kind of employers that boost a state’s economic output.

Cannon’s chief worry is that declines in college-going rates weren’t evenly distributed.

“We’re gaining the impression that those who chose not to enroll in college after high school were more likely to be underrepresented students — low income, rural, students of color,” Cannon said.

Data from the Oregon Department of Education shows that Native American students, homeless students and students with disabilities in the class of 2020 enrolled at far lower rates than their peers. Just 39% of Native American graduates enrolled compared to the state average of 56%. One-third of homeless students, 30% of students with disabilities and 45% of low-income students enrolled in college within 16 months.

The Oregon Department of Education couldn’t immediately provide detailed college-going comparisons for past years that would illustrate how the pandemic may have affected demographic groups differently.

Across the country, enrollment among Black and Native American freshmen fell more than other demographic groups between the fall of 2019 and fall 2021, a report from the National Student Clearinghouse found. White student enrollment also fell more than Latino or Asian student enrollment.

Despite Oregon’s college-going decline, Cannon saw some positives in the data. The drop is much smaller than the enrollment declines of 30% and higher that some Oregon community colleges have seen since the start of the pandemic, which were driven by drops in adult-student enrollment, Cannon said.

“I think there’s a lot of resilience and determination on the part of many recent high school graduates to enroll in postsecondary, regardless of the situation,” he said.

It’s not too late for 2020 high school graduates to earn a degree or credential that contributes to the state’s goals, Cannon said, though it may be more difficult for colleges to re-engage students that have deferred enrollment.

“Colleges, universities and the state may need to make a special effort to reach them,” he said. “Some of that is about affordability. Some of that is about flexibility. Some of that is about campus culture that doesn’t assume that every student is brand new from high school.”

Positive outliers

Fewer than half of the graduating seniors at 145 Oregon high schools decided to pursue higher education after graduating in 2020, data from the Oregon Department of Education shows.

That includes Thurston High in Springfield, only a stone’s throw from Lane Community College and the University of Oregon. Just 48% of 2020 graduates at the 1,100 student school enrolled in college, down from 52% in previously released ODE data.

That low college-going rate came despite the fact that Thurston’s student body isn’t saddled with greater poverty than Oregon’s as a whole, according to statistics from 2019, the last time the state collected data about the share of students who qualified for free or reduced-price school meals, a traditional marker of family economic struggle. That year, 53% of Thurston High seniors qualified, a bit lower than the 57% statewide rate.

Other schools stand out for punching above their weight. Among the 91 schools who sent more students to college than the state average were Pacific High School — a rural and high-poverty Curry County school with around 60 students — and David Douglas, a Portland-area school where about 80% of students are low-income.

Three-quarters of the 2020 graduates from Pacific High, in the Port Orford-Langlois School District, went to college. That’s on-par with the number of graduates who went to college in 2018, and in spite of the school’s high poverty rate.

Principal Krista Nieraeth said her school helps expose students to college campuses around the state with visits funded by two college and career programs that operate at Pacific High: Gear Up and Aspire. Administrators talk to students about a broad range of ways to enter college, including opportunities at the community college-level. And once students leave for higher education, they still have a strong support network at home, Nieraeth said. Former students still call and ask teachers or mentors for help navigating classes and financial aid.

Pacific High classes are small — the biggest graduating class Nieraeth has worked with was 17 students — and that allows staffers to help identify student’s individual goals, the principal said. If students want to stay near home, advisers encourage them to consider community college certificates in employment fields like welding, that are high-wage and high-demand in the area. Teachers help other students chase four-year degrees, and most Pacific High graduates end up leaving school with some college credits already banked thanks to dual-credit classes, Nieraeth said.

“For us it’s really about focusing on what skills our kids have and what they want to do with their lives,” she said.

David Douglas Principal Greg Carradine said freshmen who transition into that high school take what’s called a “level-up” class, which includes exploring college and careers. Students build profiles for themselves, including career goals, that can guide their high school classes. A student who wants to enter the medical field might chart out a path through Advanced Placement biology, for example, and the school will pay for their AP test to earn college credits. Students interested in culinary or automotive careers might work through career technical classes and get hands-on experience and credits at a local community college.

Some 59% of David Douglas seniors went on to higher education after graduating high school in 2020, state data shows, outpacing the state average and far eclipsing the low-income average of 45%.

The college-going rate was also better than in previous years, though Carradine expects it might dip among the class of 2021 because of the pandemic.

“The quickest way from nothing to something is education,” Carradine said. He added: “We just want to help them fulfill their dreams.”