With the disruption of the pandemic, it is important to study first-year college students' learning experiences and its potential effect on education plans. To understand first-year college students' learning experiences after the transition to online instruction during the pandemic, in June 2020, the authors of this study reached out to first-year college students who took the ACT® test as a junior or senior between 2017-2019. These students graduated from high school in 2019 and enrolled in a postsecondary institution in the 2019-2020 school year. The authors wanted to learn about their academic challenges, their concerns, the learning resources they needed, and the potential effect the coronavirus pandemic had on their education plans. This brief shares what the authors learned from 1,164 first-year college students and offers recommendations for policymakers and higher education personnel. Findings include: (1) two out of three students had academic challenges and concerns learning online during the pandemic; (2) the fewer perceived academic challenges and academic concerns they had, the more certain they were about enrolling in the same institution next year; and (3) increasing access to technology and the internet, reducing learning resource gap, and providing online learning experience before formal instruction help to alleviate these academic challenges and concerns.