Well, for S19, he doesn’t need the personal touch, just prefers it. 
Look at my answers 10640… Yikes. That’s a lot of posts.
I understand what you are saying though. If your kids need the hand holding per se sure. But the new reality is hybrid education will be here past next year (remind me next year that I am wrong… Lol ?). Kids need to adapt. Even my Lac daughter did. Not ideal and things sucked.,no question but she and her Lac friends from a multitude of Lac schools adapted across the United States.
I am totally “not” making light of this. I just found it funny since my son’s always been this way. He doesn’t even come out of his room till like 2:00pm. Even though he is doing green belt Six Sigma certification. It’s gorgeous out in Chicago today and he won’t even study in our backyard… Lol. Either an introverted extrovert or a extroverted introvert. Still trying to figure this one out ?. He’s very comfortable being holed up doing stuff in his room /apartment but can also be just as comfortable running a major conference, speaking in front of large groups, taking charge, being part of committees and usually always having a leadership position. Just different types of kids.
I’m not convinced that is due to the subject being engineering vs liberal arts. S18 had a legal writing class last quarter that was very successful online, because the professor managed the small group Zoom discussions very well (S said it was actually more efficient than the in-person breakout groups he’s had previously).
It might be more accurate to say that students needing more hand-holding may find online classes particularly challenging, especially if they are not pro-active in seeking the support they need. That’s certainly the case with my high schooler.
You can get lots of “personal interaction” at a big school in liberal arts too. Anecdotally, my kid receives plenty of it at her big school, whether with study groups, professors, advisors, etc. Even at the gym. 
@knowstuff That’s not exactly how I meant the comment. I meant that S19 likes to sit in a class and discuss history or art and that doesn’t work as well online as in person. His STEM-y classes seemed to work better in the remote format.
Plus, kids who choose an LAC, even ones who end up majoring in something STEM, choose it because they can take classes in all subjects for all four years and they want to do that and not focus just on STEM. And they are choosing a teeny tiny school (that, in S19’s case is half the size of his high school) for that particular type of community that’s hard to deliver remotely. Even Zoom isn’t the same. There’s Zoom fatigue and there have been a lot of articles written about how looking at a bunch of faces is not the same as being in a classroom with people. It’s disorienting. Anyway, I didn’t mean to offend at all!
Nothing wrong with that
@Knowsstuff Great description. Just when did you meet my S?
I still think that the HYPMS schools simply decided it wasn’t worth the added expense (maintaining half empty dorms, procuring PPE for staff, the constant coverage by major media outlets, etc.) trying to cater (literally, in some cases) to the needs of a lot of kids who even if they aren’t rich, are every bit as demanding. I think the schools like Middlebury, Wesleyan, Vassar and Davidson are making bets that they know their student bodies; that their small sizes are already manageable and they’re going to be “damned, if they do and damned, if they don’t” open. Wesleyan has already spent about $40 million on augmented financial aid packages, and contracting and consulting fees. So, I really think that for most SLACs the financial consequences are a wash.
Lots of my patients have the same kid also…lol. We talk about them and it’s like we are always laughing and talking about the exact same kids…and yes…they do seem to be mostly like stem kids…didn’t mean anything personal to anyone…
Colleges will not make any money playing sports this year. It’s not about making money…it’s about survival.
Paying a football coaching staff for even the worst program gets dicey if they don’t play this year. Take Rutgers, who just gave Greg Schiano $4M/year, plus perks out the wazzo…plus $7.7M for his assistant coaching staff. Rutgers loses money on football, and now they don’t even play while paying over $10M/ year for coaches? What does the athletic director do for their $500k-$1M right now? Pat Hobbs at Rutgers makes $625k.
Oh…don’t look now…the RU head coaches who make $4m (footbal), $3m (basketball) and $1m (women’s BB) all took 10% pay cuts for 4 months to help out. The AD took 5%. Rutgers had at $185M shortfall in the spring.
Schools are going to lose tens of millions of dollars this year on sports…they are just trying to not bleed out.
You don’t think Alabama, Michigan, Texas A&M will make money this year in football? The TV rights alone generate a huge amount of money for these programs even if there are no fans in attendance.
This is a somewhat dated list (2018) but:
The top 25 teams are (with revenue and profit numbers listed next to them):
Texas A&M Aggies - $148M, $107m
Texas Longhorns - $133M, $87M
Michigan Wolverines - $127M, $75M
Alabama Crimson Tide - $127M, $59M
Ohio State Buckeyes - $120M, $69M
Oklahoma Sooners - $118M, $72M
Notre Dame Fighting Irish - $112M, $72M
Auburn Tigers - $112M, $61M
LSU Tigers - $112M, $56M
Florida Gators - $111M, $67M
Tennessee Volunteers - $108M, $60M
Oregon Ducks - $92M, $54M
Arkansas Razorbacks - $92M, $54M
Penn State Nittany Lions - $92M, $48M
South Carolina Gamecocks - $90M, $50M
Georgia Bulldogs - $89M, $55M
Florida State Seminoles - $88M, $41M
USC Trojans - $87M, $47M
Washington Huskies - $84M, $36M
Nebraska Cornhuskers - $83M, $46M
Ole Miss Rebels - $80M, $42M
Michigan State Spartans - $79M, $38M
Iowa Hawkeyes - $78M, $43M
Texas Tech Red Raiders - $60M, $31M
But there is no hand holding at LACs.
It has been told!
But here is something to cheer you all up a bit:
German study finds low Covid-19 infection rate in schools
Tests of pupils and teachers in Saxony suggest children may act as brake on infection
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/13/german-study-covid-19-infection-rate-schools-saxony
Michigan athletics (not just football) projects a deficit this year of $26 Million.
And this projection was made before the B1G went to a conference-only schedule.
This news is very sad. But I think it’s important to mention that the article also said she had multiple pre-existing conditions.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-14/israel-coronavirus-covid-19-second-wave-has-hit/12426164
“experts have blamed the full reopening of schools for a second wave.”
“Israel, a country of just 9.2 million, is now recording up to 1,500 new COVID-19 cases every day.”
(you could make that population equiv to USA of 53,478 cases a day, we exceed that now, with woefully inadequate testing)
“Yet Israel had touted itself as an early leader in managing the coronavirus.”
(like, Florida, Texas, etc)
Mostly I think the use of the term 2nd wave is total nonsense, this is all the one big wave.
Los Angeles Unified School District (2nd largest in nation) just announced that they will not have students back on campus to start the school year. A win for teachers, a loss for the students…
.
The study tested 2000 teachers and school children in one German state but didn’t mention if they also tested a representative sample of the rest of the population and compared them. The conclusion is unsubstantial without that information.
Not weighing in on the LAC kid who wants / needs personal attention vs. the engineering kid who doesn’t. That’s all quite personal. I will tell you that my kid easily made the adjustment to online classes (from a LAC type school with very strong prof / student interaction) but hated it. When I asked him why he told me it just wasn’t delivered well, wasn’t as engaging, wasn’t as informative, was just lacking the depth, etc. He did fine but didn’t like it.
It was unfortunate and unfair to the profs to expect anything different as they were told to transition to online learning in a matter of days with no real guidance, best practices, etc. It was a crisis. I’ll be interested to see how they do now as I read they’ve been putting in massive hours on retooling the experience. I hope it works well as online is primarily what we’re all going to get for now.
This could be one of those transformational moments where we learn a lot about a new and improved education delivery system. Maybe on campus education becomes more about experiential learning with projects and professor consults supported by self study reading or recorded lectures. Maybe it becomes way more UG based research on campus and you take the classes at your own pace online. Maybe…
Our country has the tech and ingenuity to make this be whatever we want it to be (including what it already is). Only thing we need are open minds and the power to crack through structures that have existed for a long time.
That’s called Creative Destruction.
New doesn’t always mean better, but it can…
Spread will be limited in places where there aren’t cases, for sure, if BFE’s one room school opens with no spread, then sure, that is great. You wait until Houston’s HISD in in session.