Let’s remember that it is more than just learning that has suffered. Students come to class with lots of baggage. According to Insidehighereduction.com, students have missed important milestones: “Amy Bintliff, a developmental psychologist…, said that mismatch between expectation and reality can be difficult for students. Part of that is because important milestones, like graduation, can’t happen the way they were envisioned. Traditional-age students may struggle uniquely with the loss of certain coming-of-age experiences.”

College students, according to a Higher Ed Today study of first-year students (ages 18 to 20), experience “moderate-severe anxiety increased from 18.1 percent before the pandemic (October 2019-February 2020) to 25.3 percent within four months after the pandemic began (June/July 2020). Similarly, researchers find that moderate-severe depression increased from 21.5 percent to 31.7 percent.” That means that 50 percent of college students report moderate-to-severe anxiety and depression. That is on its face is a massive public health crisis.