Descriptive Analysis of the Impact of COVID-19 on Grades at the University of Oregon

1 page.The COVID-19 pandemic has caused immense loss and disturbance in all aspects of society. College students had to rapidly adapt to an online learning environment while dealing with personal disruptions caused by the pandemic in order to maintain their college and future career path. We hypothesize that grades have increased — despite previous literature finding decreased student outcomes in online courses — due to universities implementing more lenient grading policies. In this paper, we descriptively analyze administrative data from the University of Oregon to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on student performance and retention in Spring and Fall terms of 2020. Additionally, we examine variations of these effects across departments. Preliminary comparison of average grades in pre-COVID and post-COVID terms show an increase of 0.278 GPA points on a 4-point scale. Our purpose is to describe newly emerging trends in higher education caused by the pandemic and offer insight into the effect of administrative policy on student outcomes at the University of Oregon