I believe though that private universities being private entities can require whatever they want for admission. State schools may be a different story. Now if they are accepting federal funding, not so sure. It’s murky.
Almost all schools accept federal funds. I can only think of a few religious schools that do not. USC certainly does.
Virginia Tech announced this week that they plan to have all “in person” learning in the fall, depending on state guidelines, of course.
Thanks again for posting this. I just went to the UCSC webinar and they said I think 50-100 person classes will be fully remote, rest only 50% capacity. Housing 2/3 but might improve. Maybe priority given to in person class students. Does this mean a freshman could end up fully remote from home? Yikes!
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That sounds like most of the freshman classes- particular CS where entry classes are 450 students!. So then less than 20 students will be in-person and larger than 50 will be at 50% capacity?
100+ classes all remote. Rest a mix of in person and remote but max 50% capacity in classrooms. I thought I also may have heard 50+ all remote at one point but I could be wrong about that. I don’t have a screenshot of that.
They were not big on details and are probably still working on it. I’m not sure what we will know before May 1st.
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I looks like UCSC’s largest lecture hall is around 300 students. The rest look like they hold 100-200 students which, at 50%, would make sense with what they quoted. General Assignment Classroom Information
The CDC just came out with new guidance for K-12. Hopefully they will do the same for higher ed.
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I think if S got housing and could use common areas we would consider still, but if he might lose out on housing that’s really a dealbreaker. I wonder how much influence the faculty has. It sounded like they might ramp up housing but they didn’t mention loosening restrictions on in person classes. Of course they get revenue from housing so there is incentive.
K-12 may have different issues from college. Vaccines are not available for most K-12 students, although K-12 students appear to be lower risk of serious problems from COVID-19.
Of course, if vaccines are generally available to all adults, then the main concerns from a college standpoint would be the possibility of vaccine-evading mutant variants and people who cannot get any of the vaccines for medical reasons.
Was this webinar specific to fall 2021 opening or one of their more general info sessions? We are seriously considering UCSC versus a much smaller school in Colorado that plans all in-person instruction, and the difference in ability to hold in person classes may be a key factor for my son. Plus in-person housing though I hope I rightly assume that students who don’t live within commuting distance of UCSC will get priority for dorm rooms.
Yes, this fall and there is another session coming up. They said over and over no guaranteed housing during Covid. Many people asked. I know we are looking at privates too. Such a bummer to have this uncertainty.
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I agree. We’ll have to see what would happen if a college says that only vaccinated students wearing masks could attend class in person.
I don’t want to derail this discussion but with two mrna vaccines and an adenoviral vector vaccine, I would imagine that there is less chance of a person having medical reason not to get one of them.
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Agree, but the two mRNA vaccines have polyethylene glycol and the adenoviral vector vaccine has the related compound polysorbate-80, so an unlucky person could have allergy to both. (But if a fourth vaccine without any of these or related compounds becomes available, such a person could get that.)
The vaccine is supposed to be available to everyone over the age of 16 by May 1st. The numbers being vaccinated is steadily increasing. There should he no problem getting anyone that wants a vaccine vaccinated before next fall. College and k-12 students are not in a group that is most affected by the virus. K-12 schools have already been advised that 3’ spacing is sufficient. College aged individuals are only slightly more affected then the K-12 age range. There should be plenty of “immune” people by the fall this greatly reducing the threat. Hopefully schools will take this into consideration.
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The case for most college versus K-12 students differs, in that college students can get the current vaccines at least once the shortage and rationing ends, while none of the vaccines is currently approved for age under 16 that covers most K-12 students. College students’ risk of death is low, but the risk of after-effects appears to be non-trivial, so that is a concern. It is the case that younger children appear to be less affected (though there does not seem to be much news (good or bad) about the rate of after-effects in younger children).
Yes, so college aged students should all have the ability to get vaccinated after May 1st and I don’t see any reason for campuses not to be able to open fully in the fall.
K-12 schools have been open in many states to in-person learning, some almost the entirety of the last year. More are opening as time goes on. The CDC hasn’t called for vaccines for those students and has recently revised their guidance to lessen social distancing parameters and eliminate barrier requirements. I hope k-12 schools get on board with opening as many students have suffered thorough virtual learning. Thankfully a few have thrived. Perhaps an all virtual option can be maintained for those where it works better or who desire a different option.
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K-12 limitations seem to be based on:
- Protecting teachers and staff. It seems that this will soon be less of a concern in places where teachers and staff are in the priority groups for vaccine and are getting them now.
- Preventing kids from sharing viruses with each other and then bringing it home to their parents (most of whom have not had the opportunity to get vaccinated). Highly regulated (distanced, masked, windows open, etc.) classrooms are less of an issue than recess and lunch periods in this respect.
General availability of vaccine for all adults should mitigate both of these concerns, but that will not happen until next fall’s school year start. Then, the remaining concerns would be how much vulnerability do children have to longer term after effects and such if they spread it among themselves. If the risk of serious effects on children is low enough, then bringing K-12 back to normal (including recess, lunch, etc.) would be doable.
The other concern is the possibility of the nightmare scenario (not just for schools) of a mutant virus that evades vaccine immunity and is similarly or more contagious and similarly or more dangerous. That seems unlikely, but not impossible (though lesser versions of this scenario have played out already, with some vaccines being somewhat less effective against the B.1.351 “South Africa” mutant). In this scenario, it could take some months before everyone can get a booster vaccine against the new mutant.
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Currently there are 220 million Americans age 16 and over. The us is currently administering about 2.5 million doses each day. We are expected to have enough doses for every American within the next ten weeks. With these statistics we should be able to vaccinate every “adult” by some point mid-summer. So far the current vaccines have proven to still be effective against new variants. I’d say chance of schools opening to in-person learning in the fall should be extremely high. There will always be some exceptions but I can’t see why this wouldn’t happen on a large scale. Many k-12 schools have been in-person this past year and there doesn’t seem to be a great number of children with long term effects showing up in the population, at least I have not seen anywhere reporting more than rare occurrences.
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Regarding UCLA. LA County’s current guidance is 25% capacity or 100 people whichever is less. UCLA has a handful of lecture halls that hold over 240 people. If the guidance changes to 50% capacity, they should be able to get 100-150 in some of these rooms.
But the question is - will they? I have to wonder if these larger universities will decide to keep their largest classes online for the foreseeable future.
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