The 'Covid Cohort'

WMUK | By Julie J. Riddle

Published November 13, 2024 at 2:02 PM EST

Morgan Smith, who was a high school freshman when the pandemic started in 2020, says the isolation of the lockdowns had a damaging effect on her social skills.

This story is part of the Youth Mental Health Reporting Project of the Southwest Michigan Journalism Collaborative. SWMJC is a group of 12 regional organizations dedicated to strengthening local journalism.

Time stopped for Helena Cole in March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic confined the high school freshman to her bedroom most of the time.

Upon graduation, “suddenly, like, I’m basically an adult,” the soft-spoken now-19-year-old from Mattawan says, “and I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Cole is among what some refer to as the “Covid Cohort,” the nearly 15 million U.S. students whose formative high school years were rocked by the pandemic. Staring at screens when they most needed the refining fire of in-person interactions, these now late teens to early-20-somethings missed crucial steppingstones to adulthood.

And it shows, many say.

Pandemic restrictions, social isolation and missed opportunities for support in planning their futures, layered on top of the economic precariousness and social turmoil of recent years, left many in the Covid Cohort more emotionally uncertain and less prepared for adulthood than previous generations, professionals and parents say.

But hopeful signs include college-run preparation programs, job training and individualized wrap-around services that help fill in the gaps for today's new adults and encourage them to accept an adulthood that many of them hesitate to embrace.

Meanwhile, experts say, parents and other adults need to be patient, meet young people’s basic needs, and push them lovingly but firmly into a world that might make them uncomfortable.

Although some of the Covid Cohort bear the emotional scars of a traumatic time, today’s new adults are resilient, says Paige Eagan, provost and vice president for instruction at Kalamazoo Valley Community College. “But we have to be open to what that resilience looks like. It may not be what we originally pictured or fit in a neat societal box. But they are resilient, and they have a lot to provide us, now and in our future.”