My kid took a computer course CS61A with 1500 students in her first semester as a freshman and she loved it because it was almost like online. They had in person lectures but the recorded lectures were so amazingly done, and you can pause, speed up, slow down, rewind. Said most of the students ended up sitting in their dorm/apartment watching the videos instead. All the lectures, exams, assignments were posted online. The course was extremely well done, so much so that my S23 was taking the same course as his sister but 4 weeks behind, minus all the deadlines and grading. Heck my husband was taking the class too b/c he had to “grade” my son’s work lol.
Engineers used to be trained up that way in the “old days”. (Some of the engineers I worked with had been trained that way.) Then people decided it would be better if they went through a more standardized college program.
New Haven or Cambridge?
Agree with @ThinkOn. I do not anticipate Yale allowing two to a room. While each residential college has an excess of square footage for dining, study, common rooms, and these massively sprawling basements, the bedrooms can be shockingly small, especially for first year students. Many bathrooms are shared in the hall outside the suites.
Parents are speculating (without any grounds) that first years and seniors may be allowed to return.
@suzyQ7 @ThinkOn @CT1417 That letter heavily implies all students will be able to come back, and virtually all schools that are bringing all students back are dedensifying by expanding into off-campus housing or finding ways to expand on-campus housing.
Our kids were never in isolation during this. For seven weeks we didn’t visit with anyone outside of our immediate family but S19 and D21 had each other and went on daily runs or walks or bike rides. Took our dog for walks multiple times per day. They weren’t in a room, by themselves, with no chance to go outside or exercise for days on end. They had each other to hang out with inside the house and out. They had two parents to hug them. Being in a room for 10-14 days all alone and away from home is completely different.
Something interesting I saw in the Davidson update: while bringing back all students, and expanding the amount of on-campus housing by converting hall lounges to rooms. I wonder how many schools are doing this.
At Amherst, this would be great for expanding space, as student lounges in every floor are large enough that they could probably add on at least two singles per floor. Over the entire campus, that really adds up.
I’m still struggling to catch up, but wanted to comment on 2 things.
- Statement from a Bowdoin Pres re use of endowment. I’ve read another comment from another school Pres (can’t remember which one, but I think it was posted earlier in this thread) that said that they feel that they have a duty to only use the income, and not use principal. I strongly disagree with this philosophy. We are in a time of great turmoil, and I think it’s precisely at the rare times like these when you use your endowment to change the roller coaster to a mere bumpy road. These endowments are building up tax-free, and there have been calls in the past to tax them. If there is a perception of hoarding, I don’t think it’s ultimately going to go well for the schools. For those endowments with restrictions, schools can go back to donors that are still alive and ask that the restrictions be temporarily lifted or modified in light of these extraordinary times. For others, schools can ask a court to reform them in light of this crisis, especially for schools for whom this is an existential crisis. I’m not saying this is a guarantee that the restrictions will be temporarily lifted, but I think it’s likely.
- If my kid were to take a gap year, I’d be willing to pay on-time as if she were going to school this year. That keeps the cash flowing. I’d want a guarantee she could go back the following year, though.
Related to point 2, I think some of these upper tier colleges need to expand anyway. So they can be focusing this year on what they can do to bring more kids back in 2021 and beyond.
[quote="CT1New Haven or Cambridge?
[/quote]
New Haven. The Cambridge one is reading the writing on the wall and casing out off campus housing…good luck with the limited availability!!
The remote option, while not palatable to many here, may be appealing to a lot of families. Many families have been severely impacted by the pandemic (unemployed, furloughed, etc.) and may find themselves struggling financially. I suspect there are many families that would welcome saving money on room and board (not an insignificant amount at some schools), while keeping their child enrolled virtually and on track for graduating. Not everyone is as fortunate as many of the posters here, solely focused on the in-person experience, etc. Many, many kids are more focused on getting a degree so they can find employment.
i don’t think the will locked in the room for 2 weeks. Never was, never will be, not in the US anyway. There are different levels of “quarantine”. Quarantine b/c you are positive with covid vs. quarantine b/c we don’t know where you have been before are very different. I suspect the latter will be much more relaxed.
While Yale owns much of New Haven, I don’t know how much of that is residential housing. (They own some of the off-campus apartments that upperclassmen rent privately, but they function as the landlord there. It is not Yale housing, and most were probably rented by the 12% of students who live off-campus each year.)
There was a rumor back in April that they were in conversations with the two hotels in town to book all of the rooms, perhaps as quarantine space, or perhaps as housing. Just a rumor, so who knows?
Yale’s residential college model does not have common rooms on each floor as I was used to from college & my older son’s campus. Each suite of two to eight students has their own common room with each bedroom opening on to the common room with a non-working fireplace & window bench. The suites are spacious, but the bedrooms are tiny. I suppose they could move beds into the suites, and tell the students they cannot have couches in the suite, but then everyone would be traipsing through the bedroom-common room to reach own bedroom. First Year students have teeny tiny bedrooms–large enough to fit two beds un-bunked if they are lucky, and desks are in the common room.
Now, perhaps Yale is thinking that enough students will elect not to return (internationals, immunocompromised, those who do not want to pay $17K R&B for remote instruction), but they will need a lot of students to stay home in order to house everyone in singles.
I believe your D is at Duke, in February the Board of Trustees approved a 3.9% tuition increase for 2020/2021, which I’m sure the college will move forward with this fall.
My gut feeling is, this is going to be the situation faced by most students on campuses this fall, no matter what they were promised in May.
I agree with you about all aspects of what you say in #1 above. I tend quite liberal and in favor of low/no-tax status for universities, but it’s exactly so that they can work for the good of the community in a situation like this. It’s in no way “impossible” to use part of the principal of the endowment; it’s just not in their preferred financial planning. If I were a donor, I’d want them to be smart about when to use the “rainy day” fund which doesn’t mean never use it.
Reading the Yale statement, I do not see any implications (“heavy” or otherwise) that all students are invited back to campus. That would not actually be possible with “dedensification” or the surrounding New Haven realty reality.
@homerdog, I get that you want to be optimistic, but you should at least read the first sentence of the article you’re commenting on before hypothesizing that the football players who have tested positive have all been asymptomatic. Here it is:
“Presumed positive.” People who are asymptomatic are not presumed positive. If a player walks into a trainer’s or doctor’s office and says he has no fever, no cough, no headache, still has his sense of smell, the doc/trainer doesn’t say, “You’ve got covid!”
In addition, the article linked to the first article says, “One of the student-athletes identified symptoms during pre-screening.”
First article: https://www.hookem.com/2020/06/18/two-dozen-texas-players-now-self-isolation-covid-testing-contact-tracing/
Second article: https://www.hookem.com/2020/06/10/with-summer-workouts-approaching-two-longhorns-test-positive-for-covid-19/
The second article says the first two players who were identified as positive went to a BLM march. Ouch, I was hoping for not much transmission at protests.
Not sure what you mean? Those who were promised that instruction would be in person, only to have it shifted to remote?
There appear to be a lot of families who want their students back on campus no matter what.
Yes, that is what we initially expected, but the Q & A for Fall now says they have not determined what tuition, room and board will be for the Fall and that they will let us know.
Interesting read regarding Harvard’s $40 billion endowment:
https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance/endowment
“Distributions from Harvard’s endowment provide a critical source of funding for the University. The endowment distributed $1.9 billion in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019 contributing over a third of Harvard’s total operating revenue in that year. The overwhelming majority of the funds that make up Harvard’s endowment are restricted to specific programs, departments, or purposes (dedicated scholarships, named professorships, etc.), and must be spent in accordance with terms set forth by the donor. Payout from these funds can only be spent in support of the fund’s designated purpose. Unrestricted funds, which account for less than 20 percent of Harvard’s endowment, are more flexible in nature and are critical in supporting structural operating expenses and transformative, strategic initiatives.”