The lockdowns around the world during 2020 and 2021 have had profound effects on the way we live, and no sector has been more impacted by these than education. Here in the US, high school students have not experienced a normal year of learning. Many classes have been either completely remote or conducted in hybrid configurations—methods that are new to many teachers and administrators in K-12 education.

The potential of learning loss has been the center of debates around the reopening of schools. The question is narrower for higher education: Will students that are entering college be less academically prepared than previously? If so, how can institutions help?

The K-8 grade level is where learning loss is usually studied the most and measured with annual standardized tests. Before the pandemic, learning loss over summer vacations was where researchers spent most of their focus. Some students would return in the fall and couldn’t demonstrate the skills they mastered in spring. The pandemic has caused some in education to expand the view of the phenomenon—looking at missed opportunities instead of only lost knowledge.

Data is more scant on high school students’ learning – both before and during the pandemic. The true impact of the pandemic disruption is difficult to decipher. Some education experts suspect that even if students aren’t experiencing a “loss” of information in the ways they have usually thought about, educational opportunities that help prepare for college could still be missed out on.

Jennifer McCombs, director of behavioral and policy sciences at the RAND Corporation, said that some school districts and states are experiencing decreased grades, attendance, and engagement across the board—including at the secondary level. She believes that upper grades could experience a more severe attendance problem.

“[As a teacher] your interactions with students in person make it a little bit easier for you to gauge their understanding, their level of engagement in-class discussion, their expressions, their participation,” said Carolyn Heinrich, professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University. “Students may not be fully engaging, and that’s where learning loss can happen. If they’re not fully engaged, they may not be fully understanding everything.”

Split classrooms also present instructors with challenges. Some students are in person and others are online. Henrich said that students learning online tend to be quieter and might not speak up when they don’t understand something. Some students might have unproductive home environments or struggle with internet and technology access.

Online courses also lead to heavier uses of online components and equipment. Some may experience issues that were previously unseen due to the increased usage. Students may also see their learning affected by the quality of the hardware and the internet connections they have in their homes. Using a hosted desktop or other cloud solutions can mitigate those issues, but setting those up requires a non-trivial amount of computer knowledge, and cloud solutions still rely on stable internet access.

Experts believe that beyond the strictly academic lens, colleges should consider supporting the mental health of students as well as financial needs. The summer before freshman year needs special attention.

“Working hard to be aware of and address these other stressors for students,” said Heinrich, “so they can focus on learning when it’s taking more effort from them to do — that is really important.”

Conversely, Bernard Polnariev—associate vice president for academic affairs at Union County College in New Jersey, believes it’s possible that students who took high school classes remotely last year might be better prepared for college, instead of less so. Those students could have better technological and resilience skills as well as better time management.

“Even if a student doesn’t feel prepared, I think they’ll be well served by all the support services that we have at the institution,” he said.