From One Crisis to Another: A Dispatch on the Effects of University Responses to COVID-19 on Low-Income Undergraduates

By Heather Cassell ’23

An earthquake, the shifting of tectonic plates, has the potential to either disrupt a Sunday brunch or devastate entire societies. It all depends on how stable and secure the structures in place. If you felt a 7.0 quake in California, you might feel your house shake or watch buildings sway. A 7.0 quake in Haiti crumbled their infrastructure and killed over 230,000 people in 2010.

Viruses are just wandering genomes with a surrounding protein shell searching for cells to latch onto and enter. They have the potential to inconvenience individuals—varying in severity due to their economic standing and bodily capabilities—or ravage entire communities. COVID-19 is testing the infrastructure of every nation on Earth. In nations with universal welfare states—countries whose policies allow all of their citizens to live decently regardless of market forces—curves are flattening. Their buildings will sway, not fall. 

In the United States, protests of people who value their haircut over the livelihood of their hairdresser are pressuring states to reopen prematurely. We have a privatized health care system, a legal system that values corporations over individuals, and a national every-man-for-himself attitude. Our welfare state is means-tested; it costs less than universalistic programs to avoid subsidizing the comfortable, but makes it more difficult for those who need help to receive it. A system of non-government institutions—higher education, libraries, and various nonprofits—have been developed in order to fill that void. Before COVID-19, this system had the illusion of success; if you advocate for yourself, find these different avenues of support, and utilize them, then maybe you can pull yourself out of poverty. After COVID-19, these alternative support systems are shutting down indefinitely, and due to the absence of a universal government safety net, means more people are at risk for both the coronavirus and devastating poverty. Our buildings are being put to the test—some are crumbling, and American lives are at risk. 

Higher education was my support system. My mother taught me the ways of the world; when you let go of a ball it will fall, when you touch a lit candle wick it will hurt, after high school comes college, and after college comes “more college.” Ever since second grade, I dreamed of following my sister’s example: graduating and moving out of our abusive home into a dorm. To realize this dream, I worked tirelessly on each assignment and participated in every extracurricular offered.

The bank foreclosed on our house in sixth grade. My mom, little sister, and I moved into a trailer just as I started middle school. Puberty, poverty, and inept California family law took a toll on my wellbeing. I controlled the only thing I could: my grades. I learned how to adapt to tumultuous circumstances, how to be flexible. I struggled without wifi, consistent meals, a place to study, heating in the winter, and air conditioning in the summer. College was my way out.

My escape route became more focused through high school. I applied to twelve schools. Of those who accepted me, I chose Wesleyan. I didn’t know at the time, but the full ride didn’t just include my education. The wifi always worked. I always had food. I had a bed and a room and a home that always stayed in the same place. My classes were intellectually stimulating. My professors were knowledgeable and kind. My peers were talented and passionate. A strong community of support formed in just a semester. 

I walked around campus in awe. I wasn’t haggling over food or gas prices with my mother anymore. My guilt of existing melted away as the guilt of thriving while my family suffered flowed into its place. In second semester I started to reconcile this guilt and I began to adjust to living the life I earned. I was learning how to live and thrive in dignity.

On Wednesday, March 11, 2020, at 2:38 pm, our world turned upside down with an email. Campus was closing; move out as soon as possible. Wesleyan provided an online petition to those who wished to stay on campus or move out after the allocated 12 days. But low-income students like me are more than familiar with these situations—high stakes, low security, and hollow promises. With our immediate future at the mercy of a review board, we made plan Bs. I was fortunate enough to figure something out. Others were not. 

Grace* went into panic mode when she received the email; she said “I don’t really have a home outside of here, so what am I supposed to do if I get kicked out of here?” Grace was stuck. Her mom had been unemployed until late last year. Grace’s wages earned working at the dining hall went toward her mother’s phone bills, car payments, and groceries. No one could afford a plane ticket for Grace: not her, not her mother, not her family in Oklahoma, who cannot even afford WiFi, a necessity for distance learning.

“I’d be straight homeless! I‘d live under the bridge on Washington street!”

“Nah, the bridge on Main St. is better,” Chris* responded, and they both laughed. 

When Chris received the email, experience had taught him to be level headed when disaster strikes. He “just wanted to make sure everyone else was okay, minimize the anxiety of others,” but moving back home was a real possibility. There, he would take care of his younger siblings while his mother worked at a small grocery store, her paycheck at the mercy of fluctuating government definitions of an essential worker. He could no longer support his family with his work-study and his financial aid package bars him from having a job off campus, which is difficult enough due to his undocumented status. He assured me that this would not get in the way of his providing for them: “I wouldn’t have not worked—I would have found a way, even if it was illegal.”

Thankfully for Chris and Grace, their petitions to remain on campus came through. But their worries weren’t over. Wesleyan reduced dining hall hours and options, which meant more food that they had to buy for themselves. Grace found it almost impossible to concentrate on schoolwork: “How am I supposed to focus on a philosophy paper when my mom can’t pay her bills and my grandma is facing eviction?” Chris didn’t even have a computer until he mentioned it offhandedly to a professor, who then provided him with a laptop through one of Wesleyan’s channels of support. 

I, on the other hand, decided to move out of the first stable home I’ve had in five years. I had support systems outside of Wesleyan I could utilize, and since I knew others did not, I refused to be the reason someone else’s petition was rejected. I moved back to California. Since at my mother’s trailer I would not have a bed or a stable internet connection, I slept on my grandmother’s couch. I took care of my family. When airline prices dropped low enough and my family’s conditions improved, I snagged a ticket to Chicago. In my sister’s spare room, I was finally lucky enough to be in a place where I felt safe, secure, warm, well-fed—even, on occasion, happy. But not everyone has my family.

I also had extremely flexible and understanding professors. Wesleyan allowed changes to course syllabuses enacted at each professor’s discretion, and my professors have been courteous enough to change assignments and deadlines. I have been able to catch up on assignments, pass my classes, and most importantly, learn again. But not everyone has my professors.

I am the best-case scenario. Low-income students across the country escaped their personal disaster through college acceptances and were thrown back into a different, inescapable disaster. We lost everything: our homes, our income, our friends, our hobbies, even our food. As dependents over 17, we are even excluded from the government-issued Band-Aid to mend our severed limbs, the one-time $1200 stimulus check.

I am not condemning the university’s response to the public health emergency caused by the coronavirus. I am condemning the systemic inequality that the United States runs on, which causes the university’s response to have extremely detrimental ramifications for its students. One’s ability to survive and thrive is directly tied to space, time, and money. Universities provide these resources to low-income students. The coronavirus demolishes merit-based class structure because it takes the resources we earned away. We pulled ourselves up to be knocked back down. 

The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated the problems of American society. My generation already knew it was our responsibility to deal with impending environmental collapse and the socioeconomic ramifications of capitalism. We are becoming more resilient, more flexible, more outraged. We are creating avenues of mutual aid and support. As we transition out of this pandemic, we will work on fixing our country. Our mobilization will not start and end with casting a vote in November. We will work together to ensure this country will not crumble when the next disaster strikes. 

In fact, we’ve already started.