@sylvan8798 Just FYI, not all students have registered for fall classes. Some schools have pushed off fall registration until they make decisions about next semester. Bowdoin moved class registration from April to mid-June. The college cancelled the housing lottery and moved it to June as well until after the college’s task force makes recommendations to the decision makers.
It seems to me that physical distancing should be easier for professors in a lecture type setting than most people who work in an office environment, let alone most essential employees (for example in a retail store) who don’t have much choice about whether to work. Distancing is really much more of a challenge for the students than the professors.
Once office employees are permitted to return to work, I doubt colleges will be any different.
@Chuckman It’s almost harder to be a full pay family whose student is already in college. Easier to take a gap year between high school and college.
It sounds like your son found a really good fit and you’ve agreed to pay the tuition. I would not let one semester change that plan. I completely understand not wanting to pay full private tuition for online classes. Take a gap year if you must but it doesn’t make a ton of sense to completely change course unless finances have changed.
My question was what are you or your student going to do if returning to campus is optional? It sounds like your problem isn’t with my son making a decision on what he will do, but rather with the school opening up at all. If the campus is open I assume it’s because the administration decided it was safe to open it. It’s really not fair to say all the students should stay home anyway because of concern for the professors.
@Chuckman I agree with you and feel your pain, my son just committed to a LAC in Ohio, we are from NJ. We did not get to tour the school and he has never been to Ohio, and I have told him there is a very goos chance he will start college from his dining room in the fall, but at the end of the day, we figured this is for 4 years, if we have to eat a semester of online so be it, this was not a college that I thought he would have chosen last year but our state flagship , Rutgers held no appeal to him, it was to close, his sister went there and he wanted his own path.I would hope the college will be able to make this transition easier for him and so far they have been great with info, my biggest fear is he will be 9 hours away and I assume some time in the next year, we will have to do a unplanned trip to get him. He had no interest in a GAP year. If the school gave you 50% off his freshmen year but jack up the prices years, 2,3,and 4 to make up the difference would you still pay it? Same dollar amount.
They did not want to change the product, and it was more expensive for them to do so (actual consequences that affect them), even though the students see it as less valuable (i.e. a lose-lose situation).
But you and your student can choose the cheaper option if you decide that the premium cost option is no longer worth it to you. Seems like that is what you want to do, and you have that option.
What schools that already offer online courses offer them at a cheaper rate than on campus courses? Our state universities offer online courses and they’re actually more expensive than the on campus tuition because of technology fees. Eventually, the more well known school will figure that out. Why should they offer tuition discounts for something that costs them more to provide when the choice about being remote isn’t even theirs to make?
Yep kids and gaming. All I can say is if they stay up late and game in college and they can’t adjust their schedule or time management, their freshman first semester will be affected. My son’s still at college doing homework and projects. He’s extremely weighted down and finals are this and next week. Gaming is used to relax and he knows if he’s up late it will affect him the next day. Time management is key. Make sure they talk to the learning centers at your colleges. Most kids need this help. College can make high school look silly. The first semester to first year is a wake up call for many students.
Wanted to add to the line of thought re: the kids are young they’ll be fine/what about the older professors:
What about the thousands of other employees besides the professors? Don’t they count? The security guards, the dining hall workers, the secretaries etc etc etc? Way more people will be at risk besides professors and students and I’m a little surprised no one seems to have thought of them at all.
The college support staff will have the same degree of risk regardless of where they are working, whether it involves cleaning an office building or a classroom, for example. What I am struggling with is why posters find college campuses to be uniquely dangerous places for the adults involved-teachers, cooks, etc-than any other environment, including K-12 schools which will surely be open.
Dormitory living may pose unique challenges presenting more risk, but residential college students are among the least vulnerable people in the country.
You mean the people who mostly won’t be getting a paycheck if campuses remain closed but can least afford to lose their jobs? I think many people on CC aren’t thinking about how desperate those employees’ financial situations will be by August. Many are already going to lose a lot of money simply because there won’t be on campus classes and events over the summer.
I have to agree with @roycroftmom here. I keep going back to what the States and K-12 will be doing in the fall.
Are we saying that the States and K-12 schools are closed/on-line until end of this year also? Because IF they are back to business, then why should colleges be different?
Note that I am not saying which way the States/K-12 should go, IDK. But I don’t see why colleges are different from them.
^There’re a few additional factors colleges, at least non-commuter colleges, need to consider:
-
Students come from other parts of the country and the world. Local businesses don’t have to face such issue.
-
Most students, not all, are less affected directly by the virus, but they could still be efficient carriers of the virus. Crowded dorms will facilitate the transmission of the virus and these student could carry the virus to other places.
re: playing video games late at night. I am not sure what the issue is, if they are getting their school work done? My S stays up until 1-2am playing video games and gets up at 10-11. I, OTOH, go to bed around 9:30 and get up at 3:45 to run/workout before WFH at 8am in the den. S gets up and does school work until 1pm or so. He comes downstairs and joins me for lunch/watches TV while I work. Then he usually runs/hikes/works out and then either goes back to the schoolwork until dinner. After dinner, we chat for a bit, he does whatever on his phone/computer and then we watch TV for 1-2 hours as a family. Then I go to bed and he does his video games. I clean on the weekends and do most of it myself. But if I want help and ask him to do something, he always does willingly. My kids learned long ago if they complained, that meant they got a whole lot more to do.
I don’t see any problem with this at all and wonder what more he is supposed to do to be productive? He prefers school to be in-person with his friends, but does not have trouble with online. He’s done really well and is very excited about the rest of the college classes. He mapped out everything he wanted to take the next 3 years and texted it to me to read. And this is a kid who told me “School is stupid. I hate school” every day from 3rd grade until high school.
@1NJParent #2 is pretty much the same as everyone else. In fact K-12 kids are like petri dish, and they are more likely to be physically closer to each other than college students. And I would also argue that some businesses are even more crowded than colleges.
1 - the situation is IF the states are open. So I would imagine travels are also open, and US is a more of a risk than the rest of the worlds so i can't seen why international students can't come. Again IF the US is open. And if people chose not to come due to their personal fear, that's too bad, don't go to college.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: This thread is NOT a general COVID-19 discussion. It is for issues specifically related to school. It doesn’t matter if the information posted is helpful. Debate inevitably ensues, and CC is not a debate site. Thanks for your cooperation in keeping this thread open.
^^^In the best case scenario (and hopefully it becomes the reality), restrictions will be removed in phases. It’s unlikely we’ll reach the completely unrestricted phase by the fall everywhere. Some regions will still have more cases and in a difference phase of recovery compared to where the college is located.
I still think it is about how much risk and liability schools wish to take. A covid19 outbreak in a dorm that leads to any students hospitalized (or heaven forbid, worse) would be a nightmare for that school with likely litigation and PR fallout.
A plan for what happens if such a breakout occurs (you cannot simply put ill and contagious students on a plane to infect others) would be absolutely necessary.
I also am curious about how parents would feel about if their child was sharing a dorm room with an infected student. Would you be comfortable with the risk? Okay with them helping to bring their sick roommate food from the cafeteria, etc or fine with your child being quarantined for two weeks because they have been exposed?
That is one of my conundrums. How can I put down a deposit at college if I don’t know nor have they told us their residential policy of what happens if my child or the roommate is covid positive.
Assume all colleges will be online in the Fall…then make your choice from there. The college that is the best fit (academically, financially, socially) is likely still the best fit.