With the coronavirus still raging and the fall semester approaching, colleges and universities are telling large segments of their student populations to stay home. Those who are allowed on campus, they say, will be living in a world where parties are banned, where everyone is frequently tested for the coronavirus and — perhaps most draconian of all — where students attend many if not all their courses remotely, from their dorm rooms.
In order to achieve social distancing, many colleges are saying they will allow only 40 to 60 percent of their students to return to campus and live in the college residence halls at any one time, often divided by class year.
Stanford has said freshmen and sophomores will be on campus when classes start in the fall, while juniors and seniors study remotely from home. Harvard announced on Monday that it will mainly be first-year students and some students in special circumstances who will be there in the fall; in the spring, freshmen will leave and it will be seniors’ turn.
At the same time, very few colleges are offering tuition discounts, even for those students being forced to take classes from home.
Professors, students and parents all seem to be conflicted over how these plans will work out.
Pascale Bradley, a senior studying English and French literature at Yale, is just looking forward to seeing some classmates again. Yale is allowing first-year students, juniors and seniors on campus in the fall, but nearly all classes will be taught remotely.
“It won’t be the same social life,” she said. “Not that students are upset there might not be big parties. People are just looking forward to daily small interactions, being able to sit and study with someone and have a meal with someone.”