Makes me curious what the other Boston schools will do. Those campuses not much different than Harvard’s. MIT? BU? BC?
@homerdog BU stated their plans a few days ago. They are bringing students back but giving them the option of continuing their education remotely.
@ChemAM wrote:
I think we’ve already seen in such cases as the Oberlin grocery store owner who was libeled by a school administrator that juries are capable of getting pretty carried away by emotion. At least with R&B fees, you know what your losses will be.
MIT is still considering a whole host of options and will announce the final plans in late June-early July.
Lots of info about their internal deliberations is publicly available at the links from this article in their student newspaper:
https://thetech.com/2020/05/23/department-teaching-scenarios
Just looked up BC. Back on May 19th, the president said in a letter that they “intend to be back on campus on August 31st as planned”. Hm. Who knows if that will happen but, if it does and BC can make it work, I would be very unhappy as a Harvard student taking online class from home.
@circuitrider It’s a lot more than room and board fees they lose by staying closed; the UC system has already lost over $1.2B, and I guarantee you that is a lot more than they refunded in room and board money.
Also, a judge reduced Oberlin had to pay to $11.2M, and Amherst has already lost that much by closing early this semester alone, without a full semester’s worth of room and board loss as well as loss of 80% of tuition (80% of kids have stated they will take time off if we are online, and the college has stated they will allow anyone and everyone who desires so to take time off).
@homerdog I am honestly SHOCKED that six of Harvard’s graduate schools are remaining online; even at Princeton, Stanford, and MIT, where they have been dicey with whether and how undergrads could return, they basically said while they haven’t made any decisions yet, grad students would pretty much be able to come back.
I too found that very surprising. Unfortunately for those who want or need an in-person fall semester, this decision gives cover for less prestigious schools to stay online.
It is Harvard’s professional schools (rather than graduate students in arts and sciences) who will be online. A very different group of people who may be more interested in the credential than the experience.
For research universities, graduate students would have to return, and they’re gradually returning now (to restart labs, etc.) except in a few hardest hit places.
Remote for Stanford essentially means being back home. Local housing is just not available. “Rooms” in a garage rent for $1500/mo. No landlord is gonna lease a place for 9/10 weeks.
Be careful of the headlines. Some Unis with med centers are rolling in the hospital losses – due to canceled elective surgeries – into the total loss due to COVID. Yes a health care loss a real economic hit to the system, but it has little to do with education per se.
Has this been posted here yet? It’s a much more pessimistic take on classes starting in person in fall, and I found it enlightening and depressing at the same time.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-lights/202006/pandemic-u
@zozoty The failure of this article, as well as many others, is it throws around the word “science” as if each and every branch of science and study supports their point-of-view. And it doesn’t address any actual figures to support their claim. Also, with regard to the “exacerbated loneliness, anxiety, and depression all too common on college campuses”, as I said earlier, that is already much worse than it usually is (it wouldn’t be worsened by bringing students back under these conditions). As I and others on this thread have mentioned, many doctors would have no problem with sending their kids back to school in fall, and believe that colleges should resume in-person instruction. These articles also make it sound like not bringing students back to college campus ensures that nobody gets infected, which is simply not true. Students will not be social distancing this fall if required to stay at home, and will be going out with their friends; at least if they go back to college, they won’t be spreading it to parents and grandparents. Also, staff and faculty can be protected to a much greater extent than parents and grandparents can.
Ultimately, these articles paint colleges as evil for wanting to resume student education in a much more effective form than we got this spring, under conditions that would maximize safety, without addressing how disastrous it would be for colleges to remain closed.
Also are they reporting actual losses or are they including on-paper losses due to stockmarket exposure?
The stock market is very close to being at pre-covid levels.
BC orientation starts this weekend. They have laid out a three phase plan, with the first two phases taking place on line and the last phase taking place on campus prior to the start of classes. D20 has been placed in a group of 12 students who she will complete orientation with via zoom, etc. So BC is acting as if they will be on campus in the fall, however I won’t fully believe that is the case until the “official” plan is announced, which admissions told me would be early July.
@xyz123a wow that’s super early for orientation! Do they choose their classes soon? Just wondering if they will know during registration if their classes are online or not even if the students are on campus. That freshman registration issue must be one for most colleges out there. Bowdoin doesn’t do freshman registration until the kids get to school but I know a lot of universities do it at their summer orientations.
@homerdog, BC typically has several orientation session on campus throughout the summer and students register for classes at that time. This year, they are stretching orientation out throughout the summer, with weekly “meetings” for several weeks and prerecorded videos to view in between. I believe my D said that she would be meeting with her academic advisor as part of the first phase and they would work on class selection during that meeting. So, yes, they are choosing classes very early. I am assuming that they must have on line and in person plans set up for every class. I was very surprised that Colby never delayed anything this spring. Housing selection happened on time, as did class selection. Although S18 received confirmation on his housing situation (which I pray will not change as he is in an apt. with full kitchen and single bedrooms), he has not received confirmation on his class schedule yet. A prof. casually mentioned to S18 that he got into his class next fall, but nothing official has been sent. S18 doesn’t expect to see anything official for some time.
Yep, and since the colleges are on a fiscal year end June 30th, my prediction is that endowments will be flat of even slightly higher for the 12 month period as the last half of the year in calendar 2019 was a strong 6 months for the market.
For comparison, during the financial crisis of 2008/2009, some of the endowments at top colleges like Harvard and Stanford lost more than -25% for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2009.