Many schools have postponed commencement until August. I would assume if they are thinking it’s safe to gather for commencement, it’s safe to resume in person classes. Time will tell.
I think the key here will be if all these colleges play nice and postpone the commitment days to June 1. This will allow everyone to get a better idea as to what is going to happen come August. They should be able to see what their plans are for Fall. Traditional schools that start August could postpone the start day until after Labor Day. These same schools usually end the semester at the beginning of December to Mid December, Classes will end right before Christmas.
My personal guess is that students will be back on campus in August. Intuitively, shelter in place/lockdown cannot go on for another 5 months, for economic reasons. We’ve only been in the house for two weeks. Alas, for now we can only wait and wonder.
@evergreen5 I think the fear is that it’s not total lockdown in five months but still a lot of social distancing needed in case there’s a second wave in the fall. All of the science points to this first wave of viruses petering out by mid June but likely coming back again.
@momofsenior1 No college knows anything about what the virus will do in August. if they pushed graduation off until then, that’s just a holding date until they know more.
@homerdog I agree we’re all speculating, as no school will make its final decision on its fall semester/quarter until this summer.
Agree. I feel like Americans have a lot of difficulty with change. Just 4 weeks ago, no one imagined that we would have closed borders and a shut down country. Now that we have, no one can imagine that this will ever end. It will end. There is absolutely no way our country can be shut down for 6 months- the devastation would be immense and we would fall into a great depression. The are not many tools left in the Fed and Congressional tool box, and my understanding is that the existing “kitchen sink” solutions they threw at this buy us only 3 months - max. Young people are the lowest risk of the pool. We will have much much better testing (15m) and will get used to wearing masks and cleaning etc… and forge ahead. Remember, stopping this disease has always been about not overwhelming our heathcare system at once “flattening the curve” - not necessarily about the death rate. The peak in the Northeast is in less than 2 weeks. Hopefully (HOPEFULLY) we will all start getting some luck and will get: fast plentiful testing, antibody testing that works, anti-virals that reduce death rate, and an improvement with warmer weather.
Many colleges will shutter because they had poor finances in good times. There are too many colleges in the US and they are too expensive. The model doesn’t work and this crisis will speed up the process of shuttering schools that haven’t had a good business model in years.
Why start after Labor Day? What’s the benefit of changing their entire standard process for a week difference? These colleges WILL have time to prepare - they have an ENTIRE summer, where they probably won’t have their normal summer activities (like summer courses/camps etc… which will likely be cancelled).
Edited to add - if we knew we didn’t have to worry about a ‘second wave’, I’d be all for starting a month later and just squeezing the breaks and extending the spring term. That would be a great solution. I just feel that August is probably the BEST time to go back, based on the idea that there will be a ‘second wave’ in the winter. I really feel like we will be in a much better place by August.
@suzyQ7 Why start later? To keep kids out of dorms as long as possible. Bringing kids from all over the country to live in close quarters could make the second wave of the virus way worse for the country. Everyone staying put as long as possible gives the country a better chance of keeping people healthy and resuming some sense of normalcy until there is a vaccine. Maybe there will be some sort of antibody test and a way to determine who is safe to be out and about but going to school later also gives the medical community more time to deliver a usable plan to keep kids at school for a whole semester and not back to school in August and then fleeing back home again in November.
If the curve starts to flatten around June, the extra 3 weeks could be beneficial. For sure not a drastic change, but one that could offer the extra peace of mind many would want including the schools.
@chmcnm and @roycroftmom , I had a college junior D in what we thought was going to be a “hot spot” (LA). There was one stressful morning during which we thought that LA might prohibit air travel, and wanted to get her home ASAP, which we did. But other than the fact that her city happens to be a potential hot spot (which is unpredictable, and has/could also happen with Seattle for example, and of course now NY/NJ), having her far away didn’t feel that much different than my college freshman son whose school is a 7.5 hour drive in a small town. We got them both home quickly. Both of their stuff is still at school (D’s in her apt, S in his dorm) with no current plan to go get it. We’ll deal with move outs when we have some info, right now it is just sit tight.
All of their peers attend schools much closer to home and honestly, their experiences through this have not been much different from ours…meaning, a time came, abruptly, where they needed to come home, and they did. It took a couple hours, a whole day, or a flight. I think that most families have varying comfort levels with the kids being away in normal times, and this will just amplify with the coronavirus, but it is still an individual decision with no right or wrong. Yes, flying our D home was riskier than if it was a drive. She took precautions because flying was the only option, besides staying in a potentially hot spot city. But I just don’t know that the thought of a future pandemic would be a deciding factor as to whether to attend college a flight or a drive away.
Until I read this thread (or maybe it was another) I had not even considered the possibility of either of my kids transferring or taking a gap year. Now, I can’t put myself in the shoes of an incoming 2020 freshman and realize that their situation is much different than ours with kids already in school. My kids both LOVE their schools and especially the junior would much rather continue online, with the professors she loves and the mentors she has, than online at some other school (AND she’s in the arts…Theater, so her classes are hugely impacted by this). We both have faith that her school and professors will work it out. I do not believe that the current state of their online classes 1-2 weeks in reflects what they will/could be over the summer or fall. I also have not considered a gap year; I can’t imagine what the kids would do, neither of them are in the medical field and around here, the only other jobs are at grocery stores or Amazon. I can’t imagine it is a great time to get an internship, and honestly, we wouldn’t feel great about sending our kids out to get jobs when they don’t really need them right now.
Finances are a huge factor and I do not take for granted that we can afford to keep the kids enrolled at their schools that they are thriving at and that we love, and save jobs for people that need them more than my kids do. So even though online learning at their schools is not nearly as good as having them there in person, for us at this point it seems like the second best thing.
But what does a few weeks buy us in AUGUST? I don’t get it. If the semester starts, they will move back in (in close quarters) anyway, and the ‘second wave’ - if one happens (which is possible) - would only heat up when it gets cold in October. I would think getting kids in sooner, is better than later. But there are too many unknowns here - like if there will be a second wave and will things be substantially better in August. I feel pretty good about the latter, no clue on the former.
Everyone is watching when China will reopen its schools and whether there will be a second wave of infections there.
@suzyQ7 I guess I’m just thinking it gives science more time to develop anti-viral meds and more time to get them approved. Also gives more time to develop some sort of plan if an antibody test is developed and we can use it to see who is healthy and can safely go back to school. And it’s just more time, period, for analysis of our current situation and better predictions for what to expect for a second wave. August sounds far away but it’s really not. The country seems to be working in emergency mode right now and will likely be doing that through June.
That only leaves July to look back on what happened and to plan for a second wave. Sure, we could be entering back into society in June but it will be slow going. Even China is doing baby steps and is trying to figure out how to move back to life. The US will still be in some sort of trial stage of a “new normal” in August and throwing a bunch of kids back in dorms seems like it would be risky. If we have more time (maybe from June 1 - Sept 1) to open the economy and take baby steps to being out in the world again, we are more likely to have a plan that could work for kids going back later in the fall.
@TS0104 It’s absolutely a personal decision. To each their own. That said, getting your kid home is only part of the problem. What if they get sick and can’t travel? How will you get to them quickly? Is there adequate medical facilities nearby? Who will advocate for your kid? When it comes to getting medical attention it always helps to have someone pushing and asking questions.
@suzyQ7 Agree. It’s ironic that colleges were the first to close-up shop in the spring and now we want to push them to reopen in August. If it was risky in February it will probably still be risky in August.
Sending your kid to other countries that haven’t been impacted yet could be a solution on an individual level but not on aggregate. I’m not doctor or scientist but this virus might spread more easily than first thought. Countries or cities that aren’t impacted right now could be under water soon enough. They might miss the first wave but eventually I think everywhere will be impacted.
Hey I have an idea! If the virus is supposed to be less likely in the summer, let’s ship the kids off to college in July and see if they can finish a semester before it returns in the fall. Half of them still have their stuff in their dorms anyway. Lol.
As far as attending a school in a hot spot, is there any validity to the idea that such an area will have more herd immunity after having so many infected? Mine is supposed to go to Tulane…but I guess the students come from all over, so maybe that would not help in the dorms, anyway. this is hard!
I guess I don’t really think any of the pandemic factors are helpful to include in a college decision. The best medical facilities in the US are indisputably in NYC. However, field hospitals are being constructed in Central Park today.
Not a doctor but reading some of the accounts from China they had people recover from the virus and then get it again. No data on the recovery/mortality rate for people that had it more than once. I think herd immunity takes longer to develop than the timeframe we’re talking here.
Ok here is my take, I assume schools will be online for fall semester, I live in NJ and work in NYC so right now we are getting our butt kicked by this virus, I think most kids deciding where to go in the fall will be guessing since money is due by 5/1 or 6/1, colleges will be open but dorms will not be, colleges can not wait a semester so online it will be, it will be better online than right now bc they will have a few months to work out kinks, some will get a gap year, get not take, schools will only allow so many, they are a business after all. And really if your kids are like mine, they want out of the house and on line learning so a gap year is not really looking to great if there is nothing to do that year. While we can debate online vs classroom, I think the issue is online at x vs x+ classroom is the discussion and colleges are gonna want regular tuition , they are losing dorm fees this spring and in the fall , in my thinking, so no discount. Colleges know they are gonna get hit with plenty of FA request above and beyond the normal. So they will count on overpaying for one semester of online learning to keep you kid in said school for the next 3.5 years. In most of the schools we toss about on CC most parents who can ,will ■■■■■ and moan but will do it for a semester. Some will go the instate flagship ( at 30k)vs. Syracuse( at 74K) for instance but that decision will be made before we know if colleges are open for normal business in Sept. I have to think it is cheaper for a school to do online classes which are scaleable vs a set number of seats, but I do not know the debt load these schools are under or 100 other cost so lets assume schools know they will need cash coming in so assume no discount in the fall. As mentioned a good amount of small Lac will be in trouble but they are in trouble now. Like most I have a spreadsheet set up about my sons college choices, I have added 2 columns, endowment and number of hospital beds in a 25 mile radius of potential colleges. In many ways I am in good spot my son has not chosen a school yet so we have options, instate flagship, acceptances with good merit aid supposedly for 4 years vs a aid grant for one year( we have that also and that one scares me) vs a college JR who choices are nowhere near as robust. Yes many of us are in the dark about what will happen in the fall but so are colleges. We are making big dollar decisions without all the info but we should be making the best 4 tear decision for our kids.
Ok here is my take, I assume schools will be online for fall semester, I live in NJ and work in NYC so right now we are getting our butt kicked by this virus, I think most kids deciding where to go in the fall will be guessing since money is due by 5/1 or 6/1, colleges will be open but dorms will not be, colleges can not wait a semester so online it will be, it will be better online than right now bc they will have a few months to work out kinks, some will get a gap year, get not take, schools will only allow so many, they are a business after all. And really if your kids are like mine, they want out of the house and on line learning so a gap year is not really looking to great if there is nothing to do that year. While we can debate online vs classroom, I think the issue is online at x vs x+ classroom is the discussion and colleges are gonna want regular tuition , they are losing dorm fees this spring and in the fall , in my thinking, so no discount. Colleges know they are gonna get hit with plenty of FA request above and beyond the normal. So they will count on overpaying for one semester of online learning to keep you kid in said school for the next 3.5 years. In most of the schools we toss about on CC most parents who can ,will ■■■■■ and moan but will do it for a semester. Some will go the instate flagship ( at 30k)vs. Syracuse( at 74K) for instance but that decision will be made before we know if colleges are open for normal business in Sept. I have to think it is cheaper for a school to do online classes which are scaleable vs a set number of seats, but I do not know the debt load these schools are under or 100 other cost so lets assume schools know they will need cash coming in so assume no discount in the fall. As mentioned a good amount of small Lac will be in trouble but they are in trouble now. Like most I have a spreadsheet set up about my sons college choices, I have added 2 columns, endowment and number of hospital beds in a 25 mile radius of potential colleges. In many ways I am in good spot my son has not chosen a school yet so we have options, instate flagship, acceptances with good merit aid supposedly for 4 years vs a aid grant for one year( we have that also and that one scares me) vs a college JR who choices are nowhere near as robust. Yes many of us are in the dark about what will happen in the fall but so are colleges. We are making big d