Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on University New Entry, Enrollment, and Graduation on STEM and Non-STEM Majors in Mexico

Using administrative data on all higher education institutions in Mexico, we estimate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on new entry, enrollment, and, graduation outcome. The analysis is conducted by area of study and gender. We explore heterogeneous effects by delivery format, funding source, and elite university status. Finally, we estimate the effect of the pandemic on the gender gap in STEM and non-STEM related majors. Overall, we find that the pandemic’s largest effect was on delaying graduation, followed by new entry. The impact on enrollment was small. Public universities were hit the hardest. With the exception of graduation, asynchronous programs did not experience lower impacts. On the other hand, elite universities benefited from the pandemic. Regarding the gender gap in STEM majors, the pandemic reduced the gap on new entry and enrollment outcomes by 24.3% and 7.3%, respectively