UNCF Survey Shows How COVID-19 Impacts Students at Private HBCUs

Filed in Research & Studies on August 3, 2020

The United Negro College Fund has released the results of its Pulse Survey of students at member institutions on the impact of COVID-19 on their college plans. The UNCF represents 37 private historically Black colleges and universities.

The survey of more than 5,000 HBCU students found that half of the respondents wanted to return to normal with full on-campus classroom instruction. One third of respondents want some in-class instruction with some online courses and 17 percent of respondents thought it was best to have just online courses.

Some 37 percent of all students who responded to the survey said that their mental well being had declined during the pandemic. Women were significantly more likely than men to report a decline in mental well-being.

More than half of the students who responded said that they were experiencing financial difficulties resulting from the pandemic.

Eight percent of the respondents said they would not return to school if all instruction was online. Another 16 percent said they would be unlikely to return if there was only online instruction.