Yes, schools that are online exclusively should be worried about the gap year plans for its enrollment management future.
It’s a financial decision.
Almost all classes will end up online this fall, even if they begin in person.
Some colleges are telling students and parents what they want to hear. This can’t end well.
Unless of course the virus disappears in the next six weeks.
The official MIT announcements said that there has been no uptick in the requests for gap years. I guess we might not see “behind the scenes”.
It’s not at all clear to me why parents would be pressuring colleges to open prematurely for F2F contact. Students, yes, because they can be short-sighted or self-absorbed at times. But parents should know better.
Before anyone jumps on me, I definitely value the in-person experience. But as I said before, it’s a bizarre set of values that places that above threats to employees’ life and health. (In particular the blue-collar workers who cannot work remotely as soon as there are any students on campus.)
MIT had a record yield this year. We will see what option they choose to go with, but it seems both they and Harvard are seriously considering the one semester on campus plan.
As Niels Bohr purportedly said, it’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.
Only time will tell which approach works best in terms of community safety, academic continuity, and enrollment management, but it is important not to confuse strategy with outcome.
It’ll be the first time in perhaps 150 years that Wesleyan, Williams, Amherst and Harvard had approximately the same number of undergraduates on campus. :lol:
Dickinson College released a vague plan today with modifications and protocols that are the same as announced by many other LAC’s. Everyone is invited to return to campus to begin class 2 weeks early, although those that can’t will be able to study remotely. Professors will be permitted to teach remotely if they need to. They are working with area medical centers and expect to have sufficient testing capacity.
They warn students to pack light because the entire campus might need to shut down should there be an outbreak.
@roycroftmom @TheVulcan @fretfulmother I understand that MIT is an excellent school with many excellent scientists and researchers, but that doesn’t mean they are the end-all be-all of higher education. Their decision-making process is not by any means inherently better than schools like Duke and other prestigious colleges which are reopening. Also, even if it is the right decision for MIT, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is the right decision for other prestigious schools.
The blue collar workers will be unemployed, @fretfulmother , and thus seek alternate work. Universities can’t afford to keep paying food staff for not working. I really do not see reopening colleges f2f as premature given that almost nothing else will still be closed this fall, and those most likely to get sick in college, the students, have low risk of complications.
But they, like other adults, can go instead to Disney and bars and take the subway with 8 million others and find jobs in crowded office buildings just fine, so long as they stay away from campus and in person education. That’s not a priority, even though medical experts seem convinced colleges can open. If your kid wants to stay home, fine, but why deny the alternative to others?
I agree with the first part “It’s a financial decision” but I don’t necessarily believe it’s destiny that this will end bad.
All colleges will handle this a little differently next academic year and there are many factors in play such as location of college, number of students, how are they de-densifying the campus, what safety procedures will be in place, will they allow ECs on campus, eating arrangements, will there by any athletics, gym usage, social activities, etc.?
For example, some colleges are going with singles in a dorm room, other colleges will have two to a room. Singles might be a lot safer for the students and for the dorm building. As I mentioned before, the small, rural campuses might be able to endure this pandemic and any spike in cases better than large, urban campuses?
Currently, I see the restrictions in my city and county have been for the most part lifted. Heck, even gyms are opening next Monday in Los Angeles.
July will be an important month to see if or how CV-19 is still spreading…and colleges across the nation will take notice of any spikes in their communities and will adjust protocols in the fall, accordingly.
This shocks me, because as @circuitrider and I said earlier, it would be reckless to send students home in the event of an outbreak. They obviously know that kids on-campus are going to get it; if enough get it for it to be an outbreak, sending them all home to families with older and potentially immunocompromised family members would be nothing short of reckless endangerment.
That’s where I’m struggling too. If people in this country are allowed to live in apartment buildings, go to stores, ride the rides at amusement parks, eat in restaurants (which is likely coming soon to most states), then why do people think colleges shouldn’t open? Those college kids are out in the world right now. They aren’t appearing out of nowhere and descending upon college towns. Some are doing well with social distancing and some are not - just like adults. Some are already out at parties - just like some adults.
In person classes begin. One student gets sick. Others need to self- isolate. Class goes online.
Every class the sick student attended, those classes go online.
A professor gets sick. Class goes online. If the professor is too sick to teach, the class is cancelled.
You know, I think university endowments, coupled with additional tax revenue from governments (the feds could undo the “tax cut” that rewarded the 1%, for example) could very well afford to keep paying those blue collar workers.
And, no one asked me about opening Disneyworld. Obviously that would be lower priority than educational institutions.
The current situation that people have to choose between a risk to life/health vs. not getting paid - is a policy decision. It is not inevitable in 2020 with the enormous resources at our global disposal.
Unlike, say, wearing a seatbelt, other people’s decisions affect my own life, probably exponentially. If we kept all learning remote through the end of 2020, my guess is that we’d have a vaccine or at least some good treatments, and really control this pandemic.
I understand what you are saying. OTOH, if the students don’t go back, many of the blue collar workers will lose their jobs. Some colleges still paid them during Q4, but I don’t see that happening going forward.
@fretfulmother It’s very hard to dig into the endowment for many reasons, mainly because of both their investment styles (such as hedge funds in which investments are sort of locked in for 5-10 years) and the amount of money in the form of illiquid assets and money that can only be spent on specific things. Also, there is no way the Trump administration is going to undo tax cuts for the wealthy and reward them to institutions of higher learning, so that’s off the table.
What am I missing here? Classes won’t just up and cancel. There are people out in the working world, you know, and then they go home and socialize with their family and maybe their friends without masks. Grocery store workers, retail, restaurants, hospitals of course. If one of those workers gets the virus, the whole work place doesn’t shut down.
If there is no one to teach the class, because the professor is too ill for a few weeks, the class will be cancelled. There aren’t substitutes available.
What school(s) have said this?
I mean, every year profs get sick and some miss many weeks, some never return, some die during the semester. Colleges have to deal with these things not infrequently.
^none.
Is this not just the reality of the situation?
What do you think will happen?
Adding: yes, accommodations can be made when it happens infrequently, often by asking retired faculty to fill in.
I honesty just do not buy that professors are going to be dropping like flies. Students will be masked and far enough away from faculty. Even if they are positive for the virus and don’t know it yet, they will not infect a faculty member. That’s what the rules are for.
The people likely to get sick? Those partying without masks.