Higher education has always mirrored, perpetuated, and even exacerbated inequality in the US, and the pandemic is making things even worse. College enrollments have declined significantly, especially at community colleges and private for-profit schools, leading to program and faculty cuts at many institutions. As Sherry Linkon writes in Working-Class Perspectives this week, that undermines the quality of education, especially at the public institutions where most poor and working-class students attend college.
