I’m not sure what your student’s situation is but we all have to make our own decisions. Is S19 a lucky duck because we can afford to have him live away from home and not take class? Of course. But he’s shown us he’s going to make this semester very worthwhile and in fact looks like he will have an amazing internship in Maine in an industry that has been his dream since he was little. He couldn’t do it from here. Its it all about me, me, me? No, but we all need to move on in our lives the best we can and like I said he will follow all Covid rules set up by Maine.
@homerdog I was very specifically responding to Vpa2019. Obviously, some kids have had plans in place for months or are already in place. But to get the news that your school is going remote and it is obvious the surrounding community doesn’t support an influx of students, I think to flock there is a bit selfish.
There have been many stories of college students completely disregarding distancing and mask mandates in college towns across the country. I get the apprehension.
Your child is living on campus with weekly testing. That’s a great scenario. That won’t necessarily be true for the majority of off campus students and many on campus students at universities that can’t afford either monetarily or logistically to do so.
My initial observation was not directed at any particular student, rather the potential collective effect of thousands of kids moving from on campus to off campus housing.
As @homerdog said, each family needs to make decisions that are best for their student.
And I hope made with the consideration of helping the country move forward positively as well.
And in the interest not running afoul of debate restrictions I’m bowing out on this topic.
Do college students follow the rules now? How much underage drinking goes on? How much drug use? How much breaking of the college/university rules? As much as these institutions try to control their behavior, it won’t happen. Hell, we can’t get adults in this country to cooperate. It’s going to be an interesting fall for sure. In two weeks I will be moving my DD back into her dorm. I can’t imagine how it will go from there. She will have some classes online and some in person. She has a team to go back to and a Research Assistant position as well. That may all make it worthwhile.
I truly hope we can keep them all healthy.
We don’t have a coordinated national plan let alone a plan with financial incentives to keep students at home.
In my district, K-12 school is apparently online or online in the school building. So, parents who need to work are forming pods, putting their kids in private schools, or signing up for programs where their kids can do online school in a less restrictive environment (still with masks, etc.).
Colleges and universities go online but students still have leases for off campus housing and/or would like to live out of their childhood home. Like Cornell said in their justification for opening, you need to compare the actual options rather than compare in person school to all students staying quarantined at home. Even if a student defers, they could have a job or internship.
We need to be comparing the risks of opening schools versus the actual risks of what will happen if schools are closed. Or, we need to figure out a way to keep people at home either through draconian restrictions or financial incentives.
@HamSBDad Because most colleges don’t care about underage drinking and don’t really enforce many rules because they don’t see the need to. D mentioned at Amherst ACPD often turns a blind eye to people drinking underage, and even said in their meeting with first-years last year that if they walked into a party to just put down your drink and you wouldn’t get in trouble.
It’s different with COVID-19 measures because there is a clear need for strict rule enforcement, and potential dire consequences for colleges who don’t enforce these rules strictly.
They might not be the lowest priority either. Vaccine priority is presumably based on both individual health risk and public health risk, as well as the level of negative effects that one’s social distancing measures (if possible at all) have on oneself and others. Obviously, people like health care workers (particular older ones) and other workers doing “essential” jobs that are high risk (indoor, close contact with others) may be highest on vaccine priority. Nursing home residents and employees may also be high priority based on these measures.
But while kids in K-6 may have low individual health risk, they can have high public health risk (in terms of being vectors of spreading the virus) if they go back to in-person school in indoor classrooms. So they may be at higher priority than others who are able to work from home or outdoors with social distancing.
@RosePetal35 So are colleges suddenly going to make alcohol enforcement a priority? Because that is part of the issue. Do you really think college students aren’t going to party when they get back together? And then do you really think college kids partying are going to social distance and where masks? The schools will try but they won’t be able to control their behavior effectively enough.
@HamSBDad I think they won’t be able to control it at schools with substantial off-campus populations, but at schools where virtually everyone is on-campus, I think they will. Amherst especially, considering they are not letting students leave campus (assuming they still let them come back).
Princeton shifts to fully remote for fall semester.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/08/07/fall-2020-update-undergraduate-education-be-fully-remote
Honestly, regardless of whether you believe colleges should be bringing back, I think the time to make these decision reversals was a few weeks ago; not now. We’ve known this was going to be the scenario for weeks now.
I can only speak for myself. I am a college student who will follow all the rules. I really want to make this work, and I’m sure I am not alone in this. Especially incoming freshman who had our senior year cut short. …ps I also don’t underage drink
Is one of your parents looking over your shoulder right now? Its ok, we won’t tell.
lol…no…if you count an occasional glass of wine at home with family - dinners (holidays) I do it for personal fitness reasons. Plus I don’t enjoy being around a lot of rowdy drunk people. I enjoy fitness and training for spartan races, and hopefully a marathon the year after next. Ps. My parents are very easy to talk to.
I would feel a lot better about my kid sacrificing for the good of the country as a whole if it were a collective effort. Right now, it feels more like she’s being exhorted to conserve water by forgoing showers, while ten percent of the citizenry is going around with wrenches to open all the hydrants.
I congratulate you and am grateful for students like you (and I also congratulate you for not underage-drinking, because some lives can get ruined pretty early on as a result of that)! I really want it to work as well–we all do, of course.
The problem is that you really CAN only speak for yourself. To be very honest, at your age I don’t know how responsible I would have been about all this. When I think back to how careless I was in my teens and 20’s I realize that it’s a wonder I’m still alive (and have my degrees)! 
My son, thank God, is also super-responsible about these things, and I’m sure that the children of most of the posters here are as well.
But I can assure you that there will be many who shrug off the rules, either because their parents also ignore them, or just because you’re at the age when…well, rules are just meant to be broken. And that’s the problem. If the schools (and everywhere else) could just be filled with responsible people like you, we’d have this lousy virus under control soon. But that’s just not the case. It has to be a real, consistent, GROUP effort. Even a couple of students (or adults) who flout the rules put everyone else in jeopardy, and will just drag this thing out indefinitely. I for one am sick to death of having to live like this, and of running into people EVERY TIME I GO OUT THE DOOR who clearly don’t take it seriously.
If everyone in the country could just bite the bullet and do what’s recommended by the real experts (Dr. Fauci is a good place to start!) for just a few months, we could get back to “normal” in a relatively short period of time. But some just refuse (often the ones who complain the most about the inconveniences of the pandemic!).
wow…such late notice …in a state that has very low numbers now.
@Luckyjade2024 Though, to be fair, they weren’t moving in kids for about three weeks. On the other hand, if Amherst reverses, it will be the closest reversal yet, with only 8 days left until move-in.
I agree with everything you said. It’s adults and students alike. Everyone needs to do their part so we can get this under control. Unfortunately there will always be selfish people in this world…so we kind of have to work around that the best we could.
@Luckyjade2024 Thank you for doing your part and being responsible. I have no doubt many others will also act responsibly. I also have no doubt that there are those that will not. We have already seen the images of parties, gatherings, fraternity and sorority events that are not in line with good social distancing behavior. I am not advocating against the return to college or for it. I am simply stating what I believe should be our expectations. This will not all entirely work out. I would imagine we will see schools where Covid will run rampant. We will also see others that can keep it under control. Similar to what we have seen with the states.