The COVID-19 pandemic: A threat to higher education?

Arbeitspapier

Transition to online teaching during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to various concerns about educational quality. So far, researchers have mainly focused on the effects on school teaching. This paper looks at the effects on a large Italian university (University of Pavia, Lombardy). Administrative data allows us to track both students' evaluation of teaching and student performance. Using a difference-in-differences design, we exploit the fact that the summer term 2020 started right after the first lockdown and compare students' outcome during this term to those of the same term in the previous year. In contrast to the literature, our results suggest no substantial effects of the pandemic on higher education. The findings are robust across various dimensions of courses, students and lecturers. In particular, the results suggest also no difference between top and bottom students or students from wealthier and poorer families.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Diskussionspapiere ; No. 117

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; General Financial Markets: Government Policy and Regulation ; Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health ; Higher Education; Research Institutions ; Education and Inequality
• Subject: Online teaching ; COVID-19 pandemic ; difference-in-differences ; higher education

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Bonaccolto-Töpfer, Marina ; Castagnetti, Carolina
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Lehrstuhl für Arbeitsmarkt- und Regionalpolitik
• (where): Nürnberg
• (when): 2021

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/234115
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET