In the before times, decision day -- typically May 1 -- was when high school seniors committed to their colleges and paid deposits. Now, the decision at hand is far bigger: Should students even start, or return to, college in the fall?

Institutions realize that families are grappling with difficult decisions pitted with unknowns because of the coronavirus pandemic, such as whether fall semesters will be delayed, conducted entirely online or held in person, with restrictions. Several colleges have delayed their decision deadline to June 1. But it will take more than pushing back deadlines to make sure students don’t permanently fall off the higher education track.

Four-year colleges may face a loss of up to 20% in fall enrollment, according to an analysis by SimpsonScarborough, a higher education research and marketing company. The Melching family in Ballwin, Missouri, will be part of that exodus. Lisa Melching said her son, Jack, was accepted to Southeast Missouri State University, but then her husband, a pilot and flight instructor, lost his job of 20 years on April 1. Given the family’s dramatically changed financial situation, her son decided to forgo studying wildlife biology at SEMO, and will attend community college in the fall.

It’s not just first-year students rethinking things, either. Madison Savedra, a junior at Loyola University Chicago from Kansas City, Missouri, said that if her university opts for online learning in the fall, she might take a semester off or drop to part-time status to save money.

“I don’t know if taking a semester off would hurt my chances of getting a job or going to grad school,” Savedra said.

While the death toll from the pandemic for young adults has been low compared to older demographics, those in their late teens and early 20s are facing consequences that could alter the trajectory of their lives. Meanwhile, college students have been excluded from government interventions meant to blunt the blow of the pandemic: They are not eligible for food relief like schoolchildren getting free meals, nor did they receive a stimulus check.

Ronne Patrick Turner, vice provost for admissions and financial aid at Washington University, said it’s critical for students to communicate with their universities’ financial aid offices as soon as possible. Students can provide additional documentation about changes that might make them eligible for more funding, she said. She cautions students who are considering taking a deferral or gap year to check with their schools to find out the specific conditions for holding a spot. At Wash U., a deferral requires university approval, and the student may not enroll in a degree-seeking program elsewhere during that time, she said.

Community colleges, which offer rolling admissions, are also trying to plan for the fall. Dr. Andrew Langrehr, vice chancellor for academic affairs at St. Louis Community College, said while they are building a schedule around lower enrollment expectations, they are creating extra capacity behind the scenes in case of a late-breaking influx of students. Currently, their enrollment for the fall is down about 18% compared to this point last year.

“I wouldn’t advise my students to pay a lot more for an experience where you’re not going to be setting a foot on campus,” he said. Several parents and students echoed that sentiment: If college is online-only, students will miss out on science labs, arts rehearsals and performances, and on-campus athletic experiences.

Parents are weighing the costs of paying full freight for a lesser experience. Sarah Albus, in Kensington, Maryland, has two college-aged daughters headed to universities in different states, both with different backup plans. Albus is reluctant to pay full tuition for online classes at Tulane, where one of her daughters is a sophomore. But her daughter intends to apply to medical school, and missing one semester of a yearlong science class might complicate the requirements for her degree.

“It’s so anxiety-provoking,” Albus said. “You can’t move forward on anything because you’re waiting for someone else to make a decision, and they’re just waiting to see what happens.”

Meanwhile, she expects tuition bills to arrive mid-July.

It’s impossible to measure the toll this disruption -- in social interactions, education, work experiences and professional aspirations -- will have on these young adults’ futures.

Mara Morell, a senior in Ballwin, Missouri, had planned to attend college in Florida, but says she will likely switch to community college if the fall semester is online.

She talked about the milestones her class has missed due to the pandemic -- graduations, proms, farewells. She said that through those losses, they kept saying, “‘At least we’ll have college’ -- but now we don’t know that for sure.”

I struggle through Ramadan most years. Going without food and water for 15 to 16 hours, day after day, is tough.

It’s a little easier knowing you’re in it together with a community. But this year, Muslims will be fasting through Ramadan without gathering together. Just like every other religious group, we’ve had to change our practices to try to stem the spread of the coronavirus. We can’t gather for the rituals that make holy events so special -- praying in congregations, breaking fasts with friends and working together to give back to those who need help.

It seems counterintuitive, but while Ramadan may seem like a month of deprivation, it is really a time of abundance. In addition to weekly Friday prayers, there are special evening prayers at the mosque every night, during which the entire Quran is recited over the course of the month. Friends and family sometimes get together before dawn for a pre-fast meal, and often meet in the evenings after sunset.

I feel most connected to my faith community during this time of year. As a child, it was exciting to wake up so early with my parents and siblings and do things outside our usual routine. So, how will I make this month special for myself and my family this year? It starts with changing our mindset.

One of the goals of fasting is to serve as a reminder of those who face hunger daily, and to increase one’s empathy. The coronavirus crisis will push more than a quarter of a billion people around the world to the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations and public health experts. About 265 million people around the world may face acute food insecurity by the end of this year unless there is massive intervention to provide food and humanitarian relief.

Numbers this large may seem abstract. But sustained fasting provides a visceral connection to the suffering of others. This increased awareness becomes a call to action: How well are we doing our part in the face of such an overwhelming crisis?

In addition to increasing what we give, I’m going to involve our children more directly in our charitable giving. Each night during Ramadan, we will pick a different group to support. We can read about their missions and follow their work. Hopefully, when it’s safe to do so, we can volunteer with some of these organizations.

This is also a chance to cut back on our food excesses provoked by the lockdown. The pandemic has led me to certain comfort foods I haven’t eaten in decades. (Hello, Cinnamon Toast Crunch; I didn’t realize how much I’d missed you.) Every year, I relearn that it is, indeed, possible to write on deadline without eating a snack after every paragraph.

I asked our mosque’s imam, Mufti Asif Umar, for some additional ideas on how to make the most of this new normal.

“This year, the main thing is, obviously, Ramadan will be more individual than communal,” he said. He said he understands that many people look forward to the increased social ties and community-building aspect of the month. “My suggestion is, do not become discouraged in any way,” he said. “Ramadan is still Ramadan.”

It’s an opportunity to focus inward, to work on an individual relationship with God and draw your immediate family into this sort of reflection and prayer, he said.

He added that this period of social isolation can help us appreciate the blessings we have taken for granted in the past. Isn’t that the truth? I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve thought “I’m never taking that for granted again” over the past few months.

Umar also reminded me that for those who believe in a divine power, that belief is never confined to a physical space.

“Whether the doors of the masjid are open or closed, the doors of (God’s) mercy are never closed,” he said.

That’s food for the soul.

At this moment of crisis, one of the toughest decisions facing parents with young children is how long they can keep paying for day care they can no longer use. The current situation has revealed all the cracks in our country’s child care system.

Laura Boling, a single, working mother in Ballwin, Missouri, has been paying full tuition to her day care provider, despite keeping her son home since mid-March. Her mother lives with them, and Boling was worried about potentially exposing her to the coronavirus if she continued sending her 3-year-old son. Both she and her mom are working from home.

Her son has been going to the same in-home provider since he was 3 months old.

“I want to stay with (the provider) because we really love her,” Boling said. But she says if she is still unable to send her son by mid-May, she will stop paying and unenroll him. “I understand she is in a hard situation, but I can only do so much.”

Day care providers have to continue paying their fixed costs during the lockdown crisis, despite plunging attendance. While many contracts mandate that parents continue to pay tuition to retain a spot, it has become financially impossible for those who have lost their jobs. Other parents have had to continue to pay for day care even though the facilities have closed down.

Day care payments often rival a mortgage, and are one of the most significant parts of a family’s budget. Parents are weighing emotional and moral factors in their decisions.

Dawn Spell, a nurse practitioner in Lake Saint Louis, Missouri, still has to go to the urgent care facility where she works while her young children are at home. She has been adjusting her hours and taking some unpaid days off, and her husband also takes one day a week off from his job to help care for their children. They paid about 60% of their day care bill for April -- $600 -- in addition to paying a sitter who comes to their home.

“I’m feeling extremely stressed,” Spell said. They will have to stop paying for the unused day care going forward, she said. “I feel bad, and worry about (the provider) not being able to pay the full-time staff.”

Day care costs more than in-state college tuition in more than half the country. Parents pay an average of $9,600 annually for care for one young child, according to a report by Child Care Aware of America. In some states, the cost far exceeds that average, and families with more than one child are paying multiples of that amount.

For health care workers with kids, that financial pressure is coupled with their current hazardous work conditions.

Dr. Betsy Odom, an emergency medicine resident at Barnes Jewish Hospital, has two daughters, ages 4 years and 6 months. Her husband is a hospitalist, so they are both essential workers exposed to COVID-19 patients.

Their child care costs have skyrocketed to $800 a week because they are paying half of their day care tuition to hold their spots, in addition to paying for a sitter to be on call given their irregular hours, and paying extra wages for a sitter who comes to their home because of the heightened risk she faces.

Odom, who is still breastfeeding her baby, said she is trying to pump at work, but it has become increasingly difficult to go through the many layers of decontamination before and after each pumping session.

“I’m consumed by the worry” of getting sick or exposing her children to the virus, she said. Her preschooler is also scared. One of her friends at school told her, “Your mommy and daddy work at the hospital, so they will get coronavirus and die.”

Odom said they reassured her daughter that they are taking lots of precautions to stay healthy.

The ethical quagmire facing working parents has exposed the dire need for subsidized child care in this country. Providers operate on thin margins, workers make an average of $10 an hour and the entire financial burden is shouldered by parents. For a wealthy country that claims to value its children, we have the worst policies for families: no paid family leave, no paid sick leave and no universal child care.

Our government can bail out banks, but not the people who take care of babies. Instead, we tell financially stressed parents to figure it out.