Graduate and Professional Students’ Fall 2020 Re-Enrollment Plans: Evidence from the gradSERU COVID-19 Survey

Abstract

Approximately 95% of graduate and professional students plan to re-enroll for the fall 2020 semester, according to a recent survey of over 7,500 graduate and professional students enrolled at five large, public research universities. According to the Graduate Student Experience in the Research University (gradSERU) COVID-19 survey, less than 1% of graduate and professional students do not plan to re-enroll while 4% are still undecided about re-enrolling for the fall 2020 semester. Among the graduate and professional students who are not planning to re-enroll, 51% indicated that financial constraints are their primary reason for not re-enrolling, while 29% are concerned that all of their classes would continue to be held online and 24% were not re-enrolling because they needed to work to support their families or themselves.