As colleges and universities switched to online learning, many students thought it wasn't worth the tuition money and opted to take a year or two off until the pandemic blows over, or even dropped out entirely, a move that Bloomberg says could wind up costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars in future earnings.

The year 2020 saw undergraduate enrollment fall by an average of 4 percent across U.S. colleges and universities, with freshmen, at 16 percent, making up the biggest absence. It's even worse at public community colleges: Overall enrollment is down by 9.4 percent, with new student enrollment down by 22 percent.

While, in the short term, such a move can save someone money, in the long term, just taking one year off can cost $49,000 over a 20- to 40-year career, due to both the loss of earnings from taking longer to graduate as well as graduating into a larger cohort, which means supply for labor in that particular age group is higher, which impacts job prospects. Bloomberg quoted Nicole Smith, chief economist at the Georgetown center, who said that taking a year off is a large risk factor for eventually dropping out entirely, which carries even bigger financial implications. It noted that a college student with a bachelor's degree generally earns around $35,400 after graduating, compared to an average of $23,000 for those who have some college education but never earned a degree.

Bloomberg also pointed out that students who drop out will also still need to pay the tuition they owe, plus whatever loans they took out to pay for it, as well as any interest attached to the loans, which essentially gives them the disadvantages of a college education (namely, cost) but none of the advantages (a degree).