School in the 2020-2021 Academic Year & Coronavirus (Part 1)

Parents Forum
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I follow a Higher Ed blog that has had some interesting thoughts on how Universities may weather the challenges from Covid-19. It is Canadian specific but some of it would apply to post-secondary institutions in general. In particular I found this one on what institutions may need to consider come fall for incoming freshmen interesting

http://higheredstrategy.com/coronavirus-9-september-big-classes/

and this one with regards to international students

http://higheredstrategy.com/coronavirus-11-the-international-student-imperative/

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Some food for thoughts:

China was the first country with a major COVID-19 outbreak. While every country is different, China can serve as a timeline indicator to a certain extent. China’s outbreak started peaking in the end of January. From what I read, there is no timeline yet on when China’s colleges will resume the spring semester. At a regional level where there have not been greatly impacted by the outbreak, some middle schools and high schools are planning to resume school in the end of April or early May, which would be about 3 months after the peak.

While a lot of hope has been given a vaccine, what if a COVID-19 vaccine will not materialize? Last I know there is still no HIV vaccine after years of endeavor.

In the case of a public health crisis, it is understandable that a decision maker would likely take a more cautious approach – safer to be blamed for being over cautious than for something seriously bad happening with all the liabilities at stake.

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Let’s be real here. This is about the $70K+ annual cost that well off (but not ultra-rich) families convinced themselves was worth paying for the “experience”. It’s part of a line of thinking that spending money on education is “different“ and can’t possibly be subject to a value for money comparison against what else they could do with the same amount of money (like buying a house or a car), as a way of justifying to themselves that $300K isn’t a completely ridiculous amount to spend for a college education. So it seems like a lot of cognitive dissonance is in play when some of those same people are now saying that value for money in their college experience is actually important and they want to pay less for online classes.

I’ve not heard anyone say they are considering pulling their kids from college if it’s online next year when they have a full (need or merit) scholarship or even if they are just paying instate tuition. Yes those students and parents are sad, and the kids are also missing out on their college experiences, but those families have not had to build that up into something “unique” as a way to persuade themselves that signing a $70K+ check is justified.

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@Twoin18 yes. I’ve been clear in posts somewhere on CC that our process of saving and then deciding to spend the money on a very specific type of experience for S19 is the problem when it comes to going back to online. Many other full pay families at elite schools feel the same. It’s ridiculous for you to say it’s ridiculous. At many private colleges, more than 50% of families pay full price so many, many families make that decision.

As for getting “value for our money” - heck yes. Bowdoin spends upwards of $100k per student so, even at full price, no one is paying that. S19’s search was very deliberate and we spent a LOT of time traveling and finding the right fit for him. Indeed we do value what Bowdoin gives its students, otherwise he would not be there. We think it’s worth the cost for everything that goes into the experience he is having. Full tuition is to pay for X-experience…not something different like an online one no matter how engaged the professors are or how good their online class is run.

I was reading an opinion piece in the NYT this morning and I think this sentence sums it up. It’s not referring to education but makes my point nonetheless -

“Zoom or Skype are not going to be our salvation. Human connection and normal physical contact do not have a satisfying digital alternative.”

Online class to just get a degree and get into the work force was never S19’s or our intention for college. It was the experience of those four years - not the end game - that propelled us to save and to make the decision we did. So, right, online not what we planned all of those years and not interested.

I understand that colleges may very well not have an option and that local or federal governments may make it impossible to return to campus. We will just need to figure out what is best for S19 if that happens.

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My D17, who is a junior at a small LAC like Bowdoin has already said that she would prefer to take a gap semester if her school does not resume on campus in the fall. I researched the requirements on their website and it looks as if all you need to do is notify the college. It doesn’t look like any approval is required (unlike requesting a gap year after admission as an incoming freshman where your request has to be reviewed and approved). Many of her friends on that campus have expressed the same desire.

Of course, the process could change to require approval if they anticipate a large number of kids doing this, but I agree with previous posters that this could backfire for the school. But what if they offer a tuition discount just to the kids who are requesting to take the semester off? Or to the minority that are full-pay? I know many colleges are not in a position to do this but her school has a large endowment. Just a thought,… This really is a difficult situation for both the colleges and the students and there are no easy answers.

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@homerdog I’m simply pointing out that the cost of college has grown to ridiculous levels in absolute terms (not that you personally are ridiculous for deciding to pay it), and the rate of increase has been especially high compared to the cost of other things we spend money on (houses, cars, holidays, etc.). There are many reasons for that which have been rehashed endlessly in other threads, but to be convinced to spend such an eye-popping amount, you need to believe you are getting something unique and that you therefore shouldn’t think hard about whether your kid would be better off with a $300K education or a $300K condo to live in when they get their first job.

The current situation is creating a state of cognitive dissonance because people who made that decision are now faced with confronting whether the on campus experience that they decided to pay so much extra for really is that unique (and whether that’s what their money has actually been spent on). The natural response to try and resolve that dissonance is to say that “because we are not getting the on campus experience we should pay less for tuition or we will take a semester off and not pay”, ignoring the fact that most of their tuition money is actually going to pay professors, admin staff, etc. all of whom are still doing their job when the classes are online. After all, the classes are still small and (inasmuch as they can be when online) interactive. But more importantly, those professors will be unemployed if everyone decides they won’t pay next semester, so failure to keep faith with the original belief (that the experience is worth it), will destroy the model for everyone. Conversely, those who didn’t decide to pay for something “unique” (or simply paid for a “brand name” college to help their kid get an advantage in life) aren’t faced with the same level of mental discomfort.

[For those who aren’t familiar with cognitive dissonance, a good description is here: https://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html ]

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Medical care is another thing that costs of grown rapidly for. But then it may be in a feedback loop with education. Education is labor intensive, and high costs of medical care increase labor costs (through employer-provided medical insurance). But high cost of education for medical workers is likely part of the reason why medical care is expensive – for example, physicians with $400k medical school debt need high enough pay just to be able to pay off their debt.

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@ucbalumnus And medical care is another area of consumption where society discourages us from making cost-based trade-offs unless you are so poor (or uninsured) that you are forced to. Much like college, it is socially acceptable (and even encouraged) to overconsume healthcare (one of my favorite essays about this is “How Doctors Die” https://cancerworld.net/featured/how-doctors-die/).

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^^The high cost of medical education is more likely the effect (at least partially), not the cause, of high healthcare cost. Medical schools, like law schools and business schools, can charge whatever they feel their students can bear.

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Are college students in dorms more or less like our Armed Forces deployed all across the country and world?

"Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said the military may consider preventing troops from moving to new orders or coming home from overseas as late as August.

The current stop movement order started in mid-March and is set to end on May 11. More than 120,000 troops are affected by the order.

“If you look at the COVID-19 curve that most of us are operating under on May 12 we’re actually not sitting much better than we are here today,” Goldfein said Monday during a virtual townhall on Facebook Live. “My sense is that we’re probably going to see an extension of the stop movement for some period of time.”

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2020/04/military-stop-move-order-could-go-into-august-goldfein-says/

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Yes, the college kids did such a good job washing their hands and staying 6 feet apart while at Marti Gras and spring break in Florida they should get a pass.

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UCB: I don’t know why you continue to raise this supposition, when there is zero data to support it. Think about it: Texas public med schools are relatively cheap, so why do those docs also make bank? If high debt is an non-issue, why don’t top students at such cheaper schools go into the less lucrative Peds and Primary Care instead of ROAD?

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I take it your DD is not in a program that has a strict progression of courses that are offered semester 1-2. For students that are, skipping the fall semester could present a problem because those courses aren’t offered in the winter semester and they can’t take the 2nd semester courses as they have the fall semester courses as prerequisites.

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My guess? Whether colleges and boarding schools re-open in the fall will depend on several factors:

  • The particular state the college is in. Different states will be at different phases of the pandemic and will have different levels of restrictions.
  • The particular state or country the student is traveling from. Colleges and boarding schools may decide that kids from a particular locale are too high risk… or they may demand that they be quarantined for three weeks before moving into a dorm if they come from an area where there is still an active outbreak.
  • Whether we have a reliable anti-body test to show that people have already had COVID19 and are immune. If we do, colleges and boarding schools could allow those with immunity to return to school and work.
  • Whether tests are generally available so we can identify carriers before they are symptomatic and do contract tracing to contain things.
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And don’t forget about the Frosh Writing courses that are typically offered in Fall.

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Many/most here don’t want an online experience just to get a degree. This is true regardless of school.

We really just have to wait…

Don’t get me started on medical care.

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High cost of education is likely both a cause and an effect (not necessarily the only cause and effect) of high medical costs in a feedback loop.

Note that other medical care professionals (pharmacists, physical therapists, nurses, etc.) can also have substantial education costs and debt.

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I didn’t see Fauci’s address so I don’t know the answer to this, but when he expressed optimism about schools reopening in the fall was he speaking about higher ed/boarding schools as well or just typical k-12? Residential colleges and boarding schools seem, in my mind, the very last sector that will begin to operate as before (well, that and cruise ships).

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https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/about-us/administrative-offices/financial-aid/cost-of-attendance/medical/ indicates that “relatively cheap” costs of Texas public medical schools are still expensive (total “only” about $200k instead of $400k). Of course, those physicians with less medical school cost and debt can enter national markets for medical services to earn high pay.

https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2019/09/24/international-physician-compensation has some international comparisons of physician pay and cost of medical education.

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While this is a fluid situation, I feel that currently colleges are trying to put out a “back to normal” message as not to lose too many kids to gap years, transfers, picking local colleges, etc. so as to preserve their tuition payments coming due the end of this summer. As a student, once you are locked in for the fall, it’s going to be impossible to get out of attending even if they go online. College is a business and they want your money. Right or wrong, colleges (and our government) are slowly managing our expectations as not to not panic people into making drastic decsions.

The more I think about it, without a vaccine, how can you possibly have a traditional residential or off-campus college experience with COV-19 not totally under control?

While CV is not the flu virus, look at the different treatment for the seasonal flu versus CV.

For example, a kid with flu symptoms had attended a large lecture class of 500 (Political Science 101) and goes to the campus health clinic where he tests positive for the flu. Typically, they would treat the symptoms with over the counter medicine and tell the student to rest for the next few days until they believe they are symptom free. no real quarantine, no alerting other students, etc.

Now same scenario, but it’s COV-19. Under current conditions, we would have to quarantine for at least 14 days, as well as all 500 kids who were in the lecture class plus any faculty and anyone else in the dorms, cafeteria, etc. who might possibly been exposed that day or the days before. This is for ONE student who tests positive. What happens when there are dozens and dozens of kids throughout campus that contract COV-19 and have been attending classes, events, dorms, cafeterias, etc? IMO, the campus would be shutdown again within weeks of the new school year.

  • We either treat COV-19 like the seasonal flu but with more caution such as students wearing face masks, trying their best to social distance, less clubs, less attendance at sporting events, limited parties or group activities but with the understanding that some people can and will get sick from the virus (just like the flu) and our health system will be better prepared to handle the sick 6 months from now with medicines to better treat symptoms, more staff, more PPE, etc..
  • or, we shutdown the campuses and go online until there is a vaccine which might be another year+.

I don’t see any middle ground here because there is no way to practically isolate infected people in such as large dense population like a college campus. So we either treat CV like the flu or we wait for the vaccine?

It’s a very sobering thought…