The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an enormous challenge at multiple levels for all European societies. These effects have been especially visible in the field of education (Gonzalez & Bonal, 2021), and Higher Education is not an exception. In this sense, the effects of the pandemic have increased the access and process barriers for the most vulnerable groups; where working class students with non-linear paths of access to Higher Education are a great example (Reay, et al., 2010). Aspects such as reconciling spheres (family, work, and education mostly) have become a core problematic, making it impossible to develop normatively linear educational trajectories. In addition, the 'digital divide' (material, but also symbolic) has only exacerbated an unequal experience of the university institution. This revealed a fundamental fact: Higher Education institutions still do not have tools and methodologies adapted to this growing diversity of students, even more so in a context of 'generalized home lockdown of the population'. It is for this reason that analysing the pandemic effects of covid-19 from the specific approach of these ‘educational vulnerabilities’ and their effects in terms of reduction of success opportunities has become a fundamental aspect. This communication aims to analyse the experiences of a group of working-class students with non-traditional paths of access to Higher Education. In recent years, this typology of students represents a growing group, although the evidence shows the mismatches that exist between the institutional culture and the specifics needs of this group are still notable. Consequently, this contribution explores whether the effects of the pandemic have increased these gaps. With this aim 22 in-depth interviews have been carried out with working-class non-traditional students enrolled in the Catalan public university during the pandemic context. The main results show that the covid-19 pandemic has increased the difficulties of this group to develop a successful academic career, exacerbating previously existing inequalities. In this sense, not only the access barriers increased (gaining relevant weight those aspects related to the technological-digital gap) but also the emergence of processes of disengagement and detachment from the Higher Education institution have been made widely visible. These facts put in check the configuration of European Higher Education systems and represents a significant setback in terms of equity, a fact that will drive important structural changes in the long term in order to recover lost opportunities.

González, S., & Bonal, X. (2021). COVID‐19 school closures and cumulative disadvantage: Assessing the learning gap in formal, informal and non‐formal education. European Journal of Education, 56(4), 607-622. Reay, D., Crozier, G., & Clayton, J. (2010). ‘Fitting in’ or ‘standing out’: Working‐class students in UK higher education. British Educational Research Journal, 36(1), 107-124.