Tyler Totten's chemistry lab class at the University of Minnesota Duluth is no longer hands-on. Instead, he watches a video of his instructor doing the experiments. Aveda Institute student Gem Russell now practices hair styling on a mannequin, not an actual client.

In the world of COVID-19, this is the new reality for much of higher education. For students and instructors alike, the unexpected switch to remote learning has meant improvising on the fly—and finding new ways to virtually make human connections.

In the last five years, about half a million students have been displaced by college closures, which together shuttered more than 1,200 campuses. 

Many of those affected are working adults living paycheck to paycheck. But college closures don’t just disproportionately hurt older students. They have severely hit low-income students, too: Nearly 70 percent of undergraduates at closed campuses received need-based Pell Grants. Black and Hispanic students also bear the brunt. About 57 percent of displaced students are racial minorities. 

Most of the closures have one thing in common: It was a for-profit college that shut down.