The effect of mental health on human capital accumulation during COVID-19: Estimating retention and persistence of college students following return to campus life across Massachusetts public higher education institutions

ABSTRACT

Human capital theory suggests that lifetime income and socioeconomic status is a function of investments in human capital (Becker, 1962 & 1994;Becker & Tomes, 1986;Tomes, 1981). More recent developments show that human capital accumulation depends on mental health (Fletcher, 2008), in addition to ability, and access to resources to finance education and training (Becker, 1962 & 1994;Becker and Chiswick, 1966;Becker & Tomes, 1986;Tomes, 1981;Rosen, 1977). The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to impact human capital accumulation decisions as research has shown the pandemic impacted the mental health of college students, with women (Alon et al., 2020;Browning et al., 2021;Hoyt et al., 2020;Kecojevic et al., 2020) and sexual minorities (Hoyt et al., 2020;Lederer et al., 2020;Sanchez-Teruel et al., 2021) experiencing the worst well-being. In addition, research indicated differences in mental health among college students during the pandemic across race and ethnicity (Browing et al., 2021;Hoyt et al., 2020;Lederer et al., 2020). In this study, I investigated the impact of mental health of college students during the COVID-19 pandemic on a human capital accumulation decision, the likelihood of enrollment in Spring 2022 for college students enrolled in Fall 2021. I surveyed students to measure four dimensions of mental health at three higher education institutions in Massachusetts. The analysis provided a better understanding of the impact of mental health among college students on retention and persistence, and how they vary by demographic, academic, and socioeconomic characteristics. In addition, I investigated whether resilience and learning disabilities mediate and or moderate the impact of mental health on likelihood of reenrollment among college students. More than a third of students in the sample rated their mental health worse than before the pandemic. Controlling for mental health, demographic, academic, and socioeconomic characteristics, estimates for retention were not statistically significantly different at the three institutions that participated in this study. Furthermore, while loneliness and resilience scores did not play a role in the decision to enroll in Spring 2022, the results suggest that the higher the probability of an underlying anxiety or depressive disorder, the lower the probability of reenrollment for the cohort that participated in the study. Furthermore, this effect was larger and statistically significantly different for those who graduated from high school or earned a GED during the pandemic compared to those that did not. The understanding gained from this study may be used to improve the educational experience of students at colleges and universities during the COVID-19 pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)