Pass/fail during COVID-19? Not at community colleges, and some students aren’t happy.

As the coronavirus pandemic sent students away from campus and moved classes from in-person to online, colleges and universities across North Carolina announced unprecedented flexibility in grading for the Spring 2020 semester.

But community college students, many of whom must balance family responsibilities and full-time jobs on top of their classes, have been told they will still be held to the letter grading system this spring and summer.

Many other institutions switched to a pass/fail system, citing the extraordinary challenges students faced as they juggled their own health and safety with obligations to family and financial pressures. Some schools have extended those options to the summer term as North Carolina continues to enact social distancing measures that prevent classes from gathering in-person.

Community college leaders said they face unique challenges in trying to balance compassion for their students while also protecting their future education and career options. They said that while they want to give students as much room as possible to navigate this crisis, concerns about whether licensing agencies and other higher education institutions will accept pass/fail grades leave them with limited options.

“I understand students’ frustration,” said Kim Gold, senior vice president and chief academic officer of the North Carolina Community College System. “But we want to take a long term view, so that nothing we do now negatively impacts them in the future.”

While statewide systems, for both community colleges and four-year universities, could give guidance to their institutions, Gold said, final decisions on what policies are implemented are ultimately made by each school.

Gold said most member institutions had opted not to offer a pass/fail option after considering issues with the ability of students to transfer. Those who have done so have mostly used it in a limited scope, she said, such as within certain programs. The statewide guidance has been to only mark Cs and above as passes, so the credits may transfer according to the community college’s articulation agreement with the UNC system.

A major concern was that students who forgo letter grades this semester might find themselves in a difficult position later on if the school they want to transfer to will not accept pass/fail grading for either admissions or credit, Gold said. While some students may only be planning on a two-year associate’s degree right now, she said, many do change their minds later on and decide to pursue a four-year degree.

At Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, for example, 41% of students are enrolled in a transfer program, while 42% are in two-year degree programs for specific career training, such as nursing or culinary arts. Statewide, 45% are in transfer programs, while 43% are in career and technical education, including diplomas and certificates.

Even before the pandemic uprooted higher education, the process of transferring credits between institutions was often complicated and confusing, said Davis Jenkins, a senior research scholar at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University — especially when it comes to completing a major on time.

While pass/fail grading might alleviate immediate stress, Jenkins said that the lack of a letter grade could make it harder for them to fulfill prerequisites to enter their major, even if they are given credit. Both options leave community college students with additional hurdles to overcome compared to their peers at four-year institutions.

“Transfer for community college to baccalaureate programs is a nightmare,” Jenkins said. “(The students) don’t know it, but the transfer system is enormously unfair. It makes community college students jump through hoops that students who enter directly into four-year programs don’t have to.”

CPCC has tried to accommodate its students by offering two new grading options for this semester, spokesman Jeff Lowrance said. They can opt for an emergency incomplete, which would allow them extra time to finish spring courses over the summer to avoid a lower grade. Students can also withdraw and take the course in a different semester. They will not get a refund for this semester, but will not have to pay to take the class again and may receive possible funding from the federal stimulus package, Lowrance said.

“Central Piedmont talked with other community colleges within our system, and all of us have given much thought to this decision,” Lowrance said in an email. “Grading as pass/fail has many possible negative academic consequences. The decision to not offer the option truly was intended to do the most good for the majority of our students.”

Some CPCC students say that isn’t enough.

Koichi Takara, CPCC’s student government association president, started one of a handful of petitions to state and individual institutions asking for flexible grading policies this semester. Takara said he had hoped the UNC system and the community college system would create a pass/fail option, with a cutoff at a C, that the four-year universities would agree to accept for transfer credit.

“This isn’t a request for an unfair privilege,” the petition said. “It’s a request for equality that places us on the same level as our classmates in the UNC system. We hope you join us in our request to have our institutions help us adapt in this time of uncertainty.”

For non-traditional students, such as those returning to higher education later in life, the shift to online classes is just one of many hurdles brought on by the pandemic. Paul Puffpaff, a CPCC student in his 40s, said that he works at a grocery store on top of school, and had to pick up extra shifts when his wife’s hours were reduced at her job.

Prior to the pandemic, he said had been excelling in his classes and planned to take a full course load over the summer. But he said he has struggled with the shift to remote learning and worries that the lack of flexible grading means his GPA will take a hit. With summer classes beginning online and no option for a pass/fail grade, he said he was going to take just one class this summer, which would mean more semesters to finish his degree.

“Not having the in-person instruction, I spend three times as much time trying to learn the material,” he said. “At my age, there’s not a lot of choices. Not many people can wait another year to finish a degree.”

UNC-Charlotte, where a large number of CPCC students transfer, said that it would accept pass/fail grades in both transfer admissions and in issuing credits, with some limited exceptions for competitive majors like nursing.

Other states, like Texas, Ohio and Virginia, have adopted pass/fail options for their community collees, Jenkins said. But even if North Carolina’s systems reached a special agreement for the semester, students who wish to transfer to private or out of state schools could be left in a difficult position.

“The thing with the grade, this is just one more barrier for community college students,” he said.

Lowrance said that while many students do not plan on transferring at the present, the college’s data shows that a growing percentage of those students eventually change their minds.

“Decisions made today could have a negative impact on students for years to come.,” Lowrance said. “The college is trying to prevent this.”

Still, Takara said he wishes students were given the option to decide for themselves. Takara, who will attend Cornell University in the fall, said that he still had to advocate for his own transfer credits earned before the COVID-19 pandemic began. Meanwhile, he’s seen his friends go from thriving in the classroom to struggling to maintain their GPA.

“I don’t understand why we, the community college students have to be held to a higher standard than our UNC classmates,” Takara said. “Why can’t allow students to contact admissions themselves, to say ‘can you accept my pass?’ I can decide that for myself.”