The COVID-19 pandemic led to an abrupt shift from in-person to virtual instruction in the spring of 2020. We use two complementary difference-in-differences frameworks: one that leverages within-instructor-by-course variation on whether students started their spring 2020 courses in person or online and another that incorporates student fixed effects. We estimate the impact of this shift on the academic performance of Virginia’s community college students. With both approaches, we find modest negative impacts (3%–6%) on course completion. Our results suggest that faculty experience teaching a given course online does not mitigate the negative effects. In an exploratory analysis, we find minimal long-term impacts of the switch to online instruction.

COVID-19 大流行导致 2020 年春季从面对面教学突然转变为虚拟教学。我们使用两个互补的差异差异框架：一个利用不同课程的教师内部差异来判断学生是否开始了他们的课程。 2020 年春季亲自或在线课程以及其他包含学生固定效果的课程。我们估计了这种转变对弗吉尼亚社区大学生学习成绩的影响。通过这两种方法，我们发现对课程完成有适度的负面影响（3%–6%）。我们的研究结果表明，教师在线教授特定课程的经验并不能减轻负面影响。在探索性分析中，我们发现转向在线教学的长期影响最小。