A Comparison of Engineering Student Persistence Prior to and During COVID-19 Interruptions.

This Work-in-Progress research paper presents the examination of the impact of COVID-19 interruptions on first-year engineering students' intentions to persist and whether their intentions varied by race/ethnicity and financial need status. Of 7,159 first-year students involved in this study (pre-COVID $n{=}$ 3,660, COVID cohort $n=3,499$ ), The results indicated students in the COVID-19 cohort had higher persistence than the pre-COVID cohort. Regardless of the cohort, Asian students were more likely to persist, Black students were less likely to persist than White students, and students who received financial aid were less likely to persist than those without financial need. Furthermore, Black students and students with greater financial need were less likely to persist- across both cohorts. Although, COVID-19 appears to have not exacerbated these already existing gaps. Concerning the retention status across cohorts by financial need status, our findings revealed that the relationship between financial need status and retention status was not different between the two cohorts. Discussion and implications are discussed.