I would agree, the vast majority of students can’t afford to rent space to live off campus while taking classes remotely. It’s a luxury that is most often enabled by parent’s wealth and the parent has to be onboard with the decision for it to happen. And that seems to fly in opposition to what the schools are trying to do, who are keeping campuses closed to keep kids away. Other schools are opening and bringing students back with strict guidelines. Then there are schools who are bringing kids back with no guidelines at all and we can see how that is going.
My fear with having students in the community is that they aren’t being overseen by the university. What is the recourse when they get covid? Where are their quarantine spaces? How are they being tested and contact traced? Either it was safe to bring students back or it wasn’t.
IMO they are just passing the buck to the community. There are already plenty of off campus students here. This hotel plan is because all the leases are usually set a year in advance so they are basically promoting having students who now can’t official come back, come back anyway.
The University is not involved or promoting this at all, as I understand it. They are asking the freshmen and sophomores NOT to come to the area. I wouldn’t think it would be very appealing for freshmen especially, who won’t know many people and probably won’t have any access to campus buildings.
I expect Hotel Orrington is suffering financially, perhaps may not even survive the pandemic. I also expect that some of frosh and sophs who now can’t come to campus will be able to find rentals, maybe not within walking distance of school, but that’s not really needed when all classes are remote.
Maybe it would be better to have the students in off campus apartments where there are fewer bodies congregating, but I get why Hotel Orrington wants the students’ business too. And I get why some in the community might not be happy either, but Evanston businesses are suffering and will suffer more if there aren’t NU students around.
Regarding the inn near Bowdoin’s campus that’s housing 20 students for the semester, I haven’t heard anything about the community complaining…probably because no one wants to see that inn go out of business, and also because some of the extended community is providing first semester rentals in their airbnbs for the several hundred non-frosh who moved out there.
I don’t understand your comment above.
The parents of the Cornell students most likely rented an apartment in Collegetown where well more than half of Cornell students live during a regular, non-CV year. Cornell & Ithaca College are both in Ithaca, NY. Some students live downtown or further out, but that tends to be grad students or those looking for more affordable housing. The perimeter may have expanded this year since students do not need to worry about walking to class. I don’t think this is different from what students have been doing in other college towns.
I doubt the Yale students will look for housing in Middletown. Some are settling far from New Haven, but outside of CT. An apt bidding war ensued after Yale announced their plans for residential life on campus, as many students wanted to be nearby but not subject to the stricter rules.
In the case of Cornell & Yale, both will be testing all off-campus students twice weekly, and off-campus students have to sign the same student compact that on-campus students do. Slightly different arrival quarantine, and of course, the school will not be able to monitor the comings & goings of off-campus students, but at least they will be testing students.
Cornell’s president’s reason for opening was that she knew the students would flock to their already paid for apartments whether she opened campus or not, but if she didn’t open, she would have zero control over the students. Leases are signed up to a year in advance and shocking amount of the year’s rent is paid before Sept 1st.
Last I hear NU has only committed to testing students living on campus. Hopefully they’ll update and expand that policy.
Like Cornell, Purdue is testing everyone too - on and off campus, and partnering with the community to enforce mask wearing, social distancing, etc…
The students are in quarantine, not banned. If they get sent home it will be for violating the rules of the agreement they signed when they registered to live in the dorms, not because they played basketball.
Do you think it was an accident that they decided to drive miles away from campus (at least twice that the college knows of) to play ball at a rural park on a back road of a small town instead of using one of the numerous basketball courts steps away from their dorms? The college administration apparently doesn’t.
I seriously doubt the picked up the virus on the court. Probably socializing before or after - on close quarters - is the culprit.
Yeah, but they could just buy a house in Middletown! (I’m kidding, well sort of because you could see someone doing that)
My daugther has a full ride academic scholarship that covers full tuition and room and board. University fully funds her scholarship at the beginning of each semester. Any amounts left over are directly deposited into her savings account. Without campus housing, the result is the room and board portion is fully refunded to her which she can use to pay for off campus. She already has enough money in her account from that scholarship to pay for her off campus apartment and food this semester. She has friends in same boat.
Just struggling to see how its really relevant though. My son (who graduated a couple years ago) had an off campus apartment his last 2 years of school. Had to sign a lease in October of the year prior. So he would have been on the hook to pay for that apartment had it been this year before Covid was even a known thing. Could he have gotten out of the lease? Maybe. But its not clear. He may well have gone back had it been this year and lived with friends and participated in whatever on campus activities are happening this year.
Which again takes me back to the relevance of who is paying for kids to live off campus (or on campus for that matter).
A White House coronavirus task force report sent to officials in Iowa this week warns of dire new case increases across rural and urban areas of the state and calls for a mask mandate, the closure of bars and a plan from universities as the pandemic intensifies in the Midwest.
In the report, the task force points to universities as a major factor contributing to the virus’ spread.
“University towns need a comprehensive plan that scales immediately for testing all returning students with routine surveillance testing to immediately identify new cases and outbreaks and isolate and quarantine,” the report says.
@EmptyNestSoon2 even if that’s true, it assumes the family doesn’t need to not spend that money just so their kid can get what they want. Even if it is cheaper than the full dorm experience, it’s not cheaper than the student living at home. Many, many families, when presented with a remote semester see that as a needed break from the financial struggle of the full dorm experience. I don’t have a dog in this fight. My daughter’s school charges $17000 a year (approx) for room and board, but she’s also on full financial aid and they would give her that to live off campus had she chose to. But… big but, the cheapest off campus apartment for a single student that we found was $1100 a month plus utilities- for 12 months. That’s over $13k off the bat, plus deposits and furniture and utility costs. Add in food and there isn’t much savings at all and there is a hurdle of the costs before financial aid pays out a dime. So even with a very generous school it ended up being impossible to do alone- and honestly, having an off campus roommate (which are HARD to come by at her school) almost negated the point of getting out of the communal eating/bathroom situation of the dorm. It’s all a hot mess of stuff to navigate for a kid whose parents can’t just plunk down the deposits and float money- even with a full scholarship.
That said, back more directly to the topic at hand. Her school is getting closer to the first day and closer to having everyone back (who chose to come back) and so far with less than half of the small student body her friends have been complaining and sending pics of the dining hall lines wrapping around the building to get in for their take out meals. That will get worse when everyone is back. Her friends are also worried about the bus between campuses since so many fewer students can ride at a time and it was overfilled and hard to catch to begin with. She still vacillates between being glad she chose to stay home and really, really hoping they pull it off so she can feel safe going back in the spring (should there be an on-campus spring). She’s so very independent and very much wants to fly the coop again- she was living away from home for a part of three years of high school, so this will actually be the longest stretch at home since freshman year of high school.
MIT nipped these issues in the bud by not allowing off-campus undergrads access to campus.
You are either invited to live in the institute housing (seniors and some hardship cases in the Fall; hopefully years 1-3 in the Spring) and are complying with all the testing and distancing requirements, or you are not allowed on campus.
They also closed all FSILGs (Fraternities, Sororities & Independent Living Groups).
No middle ground, no grey areas.
Reposting:
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
I was going to word it differently. You all are straying off topic. Please get back to focus on individual schools. There are other existing threads were the OT musings are more appropriate.
The sharing of stories about how much rent you’re paying, how you plan to sublet, whether hotels are the answer and similar musings can go on another thread, but not here. Move on please.
Yeah, I’m done trying to give advice.
Maybe I misunderstood @saillakeerie’s original post but I thought she was referring to students from “an Ivy League school” other than Cornell, one that was presumably closed (like Princeton, Penn and Columbia and most of Harvard) who wanted to take their remote classes while in Ithaca. That’s what made it humorous. 
What’s happening at Colgate? I heard about students coming home. Is it for violators only or school is closing for all?
Amherst, Bowdoin, Carleton, Pomona, Swarthmore and Williams Colleges are offering joint programs on the coronavirus, explaining the faculties, undergraduate research, financial aid, campus life and applying to college during the pandemic.
I’m sure there are MIT students living in Boston.
The kids that returned and are living off campus don’t care if they can access the campus, especially if all classes are online. They came back to live with their friends and be around / with other students. If the schools aren’t going to test all students, on and off campus, there’s no way to track Covid infections off campus and to suspend those students for behavior infractions, and the surrounding community bears the brunt.
At least Cornell is making the effort to test everyone.
MIT is not planning to suspend anyone but the most serious/repeat offenders. The main “consequence” of failing to comply with testing/distancing rules is loss of campus privileges.
Because off-campus students have no access to campus, they have no bearing on functioning of the campus nor are they subject to MIT control. They could be clustering in the Boston area, or in Cancun.
My understanding is that Cornell is trying to pull off some in person instruction. I wish them luck, but I have shared my opinion on this matter (and bore the consequences thereof:) months ago:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22838999#Comment_22838999