I think all the top engineering schools will be fine. They have more then enough students that want to go there. Smaller schools then yes.
thanks a lot! I have to makecommit this weekend, seems Umich is more safe/
I
Why does ‘local’ matter? Many HS faculty and staff have one hour+ long commutes. It’s the density of contact, length/degree of sustained contact, and number of daily exposures that ultimately is what matters.
Edited to add: HS students, teachers and staff will be going home to family member who were not necessarily ‘local’ that day or week…many will have traveled (whether by car, train, or plane) to decidedly non-local areas.
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I agree. I live/ teach in an elementary school in northern NJ, and many parents work in NYC.
One difference may have to do with what happens after a student becomes sick. K-12 kids can go home to self-isolate but that may not be possible for someone who lives a plane ride away from their college campus and colleges may not feel they have the resources to care for multiple kids in isolation on campus.
Sorry to go back to this topic,
“It basically means under no circumstances (not even a once in a 100 year pandemic) are we willing to draw on the capital of our endowment.”
There’s some good articles on this (I linked the pbs one below) that using endowment in this kind of situation may not be a good idea. Here’s a quote:
"When an institution takes its endowment money and spends it to plug holes in the budget, it is breaking promises to past donors and it’s stealing from the future,” Greenhalgh said. “People are expecting that money to stay there and be a stable rock for the college forever.”
So if the donors pretty much say it only be used for one purpose (say new computer lab or athletic scholarship), not sure the president of the college has much flexibility.
It is true that much of a college’s endowment is donor-restricted in some way (which may or may not include uses that can help mitigate the financial problems that colleges face due to COVID-19), although there is usually a portion that is effectively an unrestricted slush fund. But then if the unrestricted slush fund part is not very large, the endowment money may not be very flexibly used, and the college could “run out of [usable] money” even with a large-looking endowment.
The optics of the endowment just seem so wrong…
The linked article is talking about tapping into endowments to cover routine operating expenses. At the time it was written, the stock market had crashed and, the article says, some schools were already overspending the endowment earnings even before the crash. (e.g. earning 4.5% but spending 8%) But that particular article was not suggesting schools can’t access their endowment in a crisis.
I 100% agree that endowments are not meant to be used to support routine budget shortfalls. But in a crisis scenario, unrestricted endowment funds can be used to help get the school through the crisis, to help ensure the ongoing viability of the school.
I think schools are just trying to use every other measure first, before having to go into their endowment, which is reasonable. But, if the long term viability of the school is at risk, then schools can access their endowments.
WashU in St. Louis announced furloughs. Hiring freezes are in place and there will be no merit increases. Top leadership will be taking 15-20% pay cuts. Most of the furloughs will be on the medical campus, where they’re seeing huge losses, due to reduction or elimination of elective and non-emergency procedures. They’re projecting $150M loss in the medical school for the fiscal year, $60M in just the first month.
I appreciate that they say they will be tapping into their endowment.
“* Some of you may wonder why we can’t cover our financial losses by taking money from the endowment. It may seem hard to believe that an institution like ours could face a serious financial challenge like this. But the scale and scope of this pandemic are unique. **We do have a significant endowment, and we will distribute as much as is deemed prudent from this fund to address the current need. **However, the reality is that the endowment is also highly restricted, with guidelines in place to ensure our long-term stability in order to provide a secure future for the university for generations to come. In addition, the endowment has already seen a negative impact due to this global crisis, and it is highly likely that it will be affected further. It would not be prudent – or even possible – for us to use a significant amount of our endowment funds for this purpose. This is the reality of our situation.*”
https://emergency.wustl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/message-to-faculty-staff-04-20-20.pdf
Good article on plight of international students studying in the US
@AlmostThere2018. Great Article
D’s department emailed this week to let students know they are adding sections so that courses will be small enough to all be held in person. We’ll see how it all plays out but Purdue continues to plan for an August return to campus.
One small benefit to the quarantine - we will get to watch our daughter’s senior capstone project presentation because she’s giving it on Zoom (we’ll ask if she wants us to be in the room or watch on our computer in a different part of the house). If she’d stayed on campus, we wouldn’t have gotten to see it since her campus is 500 miles from us.
Ooooo… Great idea @MaineLonghorn. My daughter’s doing her senior thesis (not sure if it’s the same). We have been to her “live” presentations during the year. Will have to talk to her about presentations she might be giving. Didn’t even think about that. Nice one! But she’s still at school at her apartment so it might not work.
As an aside… I would probably just zoom in unless she’s totally comfortable with you being in the same room while she’s presenting. Something could distract her if your around… Like seeing you cry or something ?.
@Knowsstuff, ha, you made me laugh. You’re right, I probably will get emotional. This is the last two months of school for us. Oldest son started kindergarten in 1997!
President of Brown op-ed in the NY Times, Why Schools Must Reopen in the Fall
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/opinion/coronavirus-colleges-universities.html
If universities institute widespread testing of their students, faculty and staff and possibly their surrounding communities - more power to them. I’d love for these institutions to step in and use their resources, clout and $$ in such a way.
We clearly can’t depend on the government doing it.
Depends on your state. The Covid Tracking project awards plenty of A’s to state “government” testing programs.
If I read the site’s info. correctly they’re not grading states on how much testing they’re doing.
National Jewish hospital is offering antibody testing. It is $94 and results take 2-3 days. They are also offering covid testing and I’m not sure how much that costs.
There is no way a school could test people daily or weekly. They don’t have the time or the money.