There’s No Simple Way to Reopen Universities
One of the few things we know for sure about COVID-19 is that breathing the same air as other people is an excellent way to transmit the disease. Another thing we know is that mixing events such as college classes—where people emerge from their usual social groups and trade droplets with others—are efficient ways to send contagions flying all over a campus. And mixing events are a large part of what higher education is about.
What If Colleges Don’t Reopen Until 2021?
When university presidents are asked whether they’ll open their campuses for the fall 2020 semester, most couch their answers in conditionals and assumptions. By now they’ve realized that they can’t just open for business on September 1 and let everyone rush back onto campus like excited Black Friday shoppers.
Colleges Could Lose 20% of Students
Projection comes from the latest survey of college students and would-be college students and does not consider community colleges or foreign students. Figures are particularly bleak for minority students.
Coronavirus Pushes Colleges to the Breaking Point, Forcing ‘Hard Choices’ about Education
Forecasted declines in enrollment and revenue trigger spending cuts and salary freezes; ‘the world order has changed’
Brown University President On Why Universities Need To Reopen By Fall
Audio recording/interview: NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to Brown University President Christina Paxson about why reopening college and university campuses for the fall semester should be a "national priority."
What Do US Universities Risk If They Reopen This Fall?
After shutting down campus in March, a university reopens its doors this fall, and welcomes students from across the globe back to class. However, due to the dense nature of a college campus, a coronavirus outbreak occurs, resulting in a number of students and faculty members contracting COVID-19. Tragically, some die of the disease. That worst-case scenario is looming over the current debate among university administrators about whether to conduct face-to-face classes this fall.
Coronavirus Antibody Tests Show Inaccuracies, as Some States Prepare to Reopen
“As reported Friday in The New York Times, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and UC San Francisco tested 14 of the leading blood antibody tests that look for antibodies proving that a person has already encountered the novel coronavirus and might therefore have some immunity to COVID-19. Such immunity would be crucial in allowing a person to safely return to the workplace. But the research team found that only three of the 14 tests delivered consistently reliable results, and even those three were not perfect.”
Colleges gamble on reopening this fall
Colleges around the U.S. are formulating plans to welcome students back to campus this fall — afraid they'll be headed for financial catastrophe if they remain closed.
As Students Put Off College, Anxious Universities Tap Wait Lists
Uncertain that campuses will reopen, students are reluctant to commit for the fall. For schools, enrollment drops and lost revenue could be devastating.
College choice: Reopen and risk virus spread or face financial ruin
Financial woes in the billions loom if campuses stay shut, especially at small, historically black colleges.
Should Colleges Reopen in the Fall?
Students debate the pros and cons of returning to campus in the absence of a coronavirus vaccine.
Colleges need students to decide. Students aren’t ready. And everyone’s nervous about fall.
“I realized how important it is to be able to access your home as quickly as possible,” Ngatchou said. “Things can change in an instant.”
These kinds of calculations are injecting unusual turmoil into an admissions season shadowed by huge question marks about when and how colleges will reopen their campuses. The May 1 decision deadline that many schools use to fill classes has come and gone. In an overtime season without precedent, recruiters everywhere are scrambling to find students willing to travel out of state to enroll.
Risk of 'dole queue' future for young people after Covid-19 crisis
Youth unemployment in Britain will reach the 1 million mark over the coming year unless the government provides job guarantees or incentives for school leavers and graduates to stay on in education, a thinktank warns.
The Resolution Foundation (RF) said that in the absence of action an extra 600,000 people under the age of 25 would swell dole queues, with a risk of long-term damage to their career and pay prospects.
The thinktank’s report said the “corona class of 2020” – the 800,000 school leavers and graduates due shortly to join the labour market – was the most exposed age group to the likely unemployment surge caused by the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Experts Predict Second Wave For Coronavirus: Will College Campuses Really Reopen In The Fall?
A second-round of COVID-19 cases is expected in the fall - just as college campuses plan to reopen. Are universities really prepared to ride out the next wave? Many college leaders fear that students simply won’t return, especially international enrollment. What’s the impact if students - and sports - don’t return to campus in just a few months?
What the top 25 colleges and universities in the US have said about their plans to reopen in fall 2020, from postponing the semester to offering more remote coursework
Here's what the top 25 US colleges and universities have discussed for fall 2020 reopening plans so far.
Remote Instruction Only This Fall for Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School announced that all of its fall courses for entering classes of medical, dental and graduate students will be conducted remotely. The school said it hopes to hold in-person research and clinical experiences for returning medical and graduate students.
With colleges shuttered, more students consider gap years. But those may be disrupted, too.
…It’s against that backdrop that an unusually high number of students are questioning their fall college plans. About one in five current students is unsure of plans to re-enroll or has decided not to go to college this fall…
CSU plans to cancel most in-person classes and go online this fall, chancellor says
California State University, the nation’s largest four-year college system, plans to cancel most in-person classes in the fall and instead offer instruction primarily online, Chancellor Timothy White announced Tuesday.
Colleges push viral testing, other ideas for reopening in fall. But some worry about deepening the health crisis.
Many colleges and universities are pushing to bring students back to campus in the fall, pledging an all-out effort to overcome the extraordinary challenges of housing and teaching them during a public health crisis…But the movement to resume higher education in person, after a rocky spring term of remote teaching and canceled commencements, is colliding with concerns that schools could deepen the health crisis if they act too quickly.
Scientists warn eyes are an "important route" for coronavirus: strain is up to 100 times more infectious than SARS (Lexis; login required)
Laboratory tests revealed that the "virus level" of SARS-Cov-2 - the strain of coronavirus that causes Covid-19 disease - is much higher than for SARS in the upper airways and conjunctives, the cells that line the surfaces of the eyes.
The team led by physician Michael Chan Chi-wai, of the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong, became one of the first in the world to provide evidence that coronavirus can infect humans through both entry points when it published its findings in the latest issue of The Lancet magazine.
"We grow tissues of the respiratory tract and human eyes in the laboratory and apply them to study SARS-Cov-2, comparing it to Sars and H5N1. We found that SARS-Cov-2 is much more effective at infecting the human conjunctiva and upper airways than Sars, with a virus level between 80 and 100 times higher," Chan said.
Colleges Are Deluding Themselves
Institutions are letting their financial and reputational worries cloud their judgment about when they can safely reopen.
NYU will reopen in the fall for in-person classes
New York University is planning on resuming in-person classes in the fall, NYU Local reports[1]. The university will reportedly implement measures including coronavirus and antibody testing and reduced housing density. It is also introducing a program called "Go Local," where students who are residents and citizens of other countries can study at NYU campuses closer to them.
The Coming Disruption
Scott Galloway predicts a handful of elite cyborg universities will soon monopolize higher education.
Who Is Responsible If A University Reopens And A Student Dies From Covid-19?
“…The divergence of opinions expressed by universities indicates the complexity of assessing the risk Covid-19 presents on campuses. Because the situation is unprecedented, it’s hard to predict the liability a university may face should it allow students to return and there be an outbreak or, worse, deaths.”
The Nightmare That Colleges Face This Fall
University presidents are scrambling for answers on everything from on-campus housing to revenue-generating sports.
Cambridge University announces that it will hold all lectures online for the next academic year.
Cambridge University on Tuesday became the first British university to move all student lectures online for the entire upcoming academic year, underscoring the far-reaching changes the coronavirus is forcing on higher education institutions around the world.
REVIEW - Schools Slowly Reopening In Europe As Epidemiological Situation Improves
In Germany, 37 percent of teachers surveyed in mid-April by the Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH, one of the leading private foundations of Europe, say that they are in contact with less than half of their pupils. In Austria, the share of pupils being cut off from distance education is estimated at 9 percent, but associations say that it could affect up to 15 percent of students. Though computers are being made available to children, with distance learning the dropout rate is worryingly high. In Italy, teachers' unions estimated in early April that the dropout rate was almost 20 percent.
Only 37% of New Yorkers who think they've had coronavirus have antibodies to prove it, testing of more than 1,300 city residents suggests
Scientists there recruited more than 1,300 people from city who'd either tested positive for coronavirus or suspected they'd had it, but hadn't been tested. Of 719 people who thought they'd had it, 37 percent tested negative for both the virus and antibodies they might have produced had they previously been infected.
OUTBREAK Lockdown cycle best option: study (Lexis; login required)
A new study suggests that countries adopt a cycle of 50 days under strict lockdown - followed by 30 days of loosened restrictions - to reduce coronavirus deaths while keeping economies afloat. The European Union-backed study modeled several different lockdown and reopening strategies in 16 countries across Africa, South and West Asia, Australia, Western Europe, North America and South America, according to researchers at the University of Cambridge. The United States was not included in the study, which was published in the European Journal of Epidemiology.
Will foreign students start degrees if they can’t travel?
Before COVID-19 struck, around five million students were undertaking degrees outside their home country. Travel restrictions and social isolation measures have and will continue to reduce these numbers dramatically.
After coronavirus closures, reopening schools demands collaboration
Educational leaders are facing an overwhelming task: establishing effective mechanisms to maintain physical distancing and to practise adequate hygiene while, at the same time, continuing to support teachers so they can meet students’ learning and developmental needs.
The Misguided Rush to Reopen Universities
Universities are not facing the biological and moral reality of this pandemic nor recognizing the limits of medical technology and political institutions to address the challenges, argue Irina Mikhalevich and Russell Powell.
From reopening to remote learning, here's what other colleges and universities are planning for the fall
There is a lot of buzz around Duke’s plans for the Fall semester. But what are other colleges and universities planning?
Here’s the CDC guidance on how colleges and universities can reopen safely
“…Here is the CDC guidance for colleges and universities (which the guidance called IHEs, for institutes of higher education) on how to open safely.”
Does Anthony Fauci Think Colleges Should Reopen? We Asked Him.
On Friday The Chronicle spoke to one of America’s top public-health officials, Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about some of the strategies universities have said they’ll employ. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Future of College Is Online, and It’s Cheaper
The coronavirus forced a shift to virtual classes, but their continuation could be beneficial even after the pandemic ends.
As Japan reopens, coronavirus testing slowed by bureaucracy and staff shortages
As of May 20, Japan conducted 3.4 tests per 1,000 people, far below Italy's 52.5 and 39 in the United States, according to Oxford University data. South Korea has carried out tests on 15 people per 1,000 people.
How world leaders use science to suppress COVID-19 — or abandon it at their own peril
Lessons for the US -- Reliance on science and centralized messaging help countries move faster to safely lift restrictions. Confusing and mixed messages, coupled with distrust of scientific experts, lets the virus spread. In the U.S., messaging is confusing and decentralized and defers to state governments for the majority of policy development. This decentralization has led to vastly different actions by governors. Georgia and Texas reopened as cases continued to increase, while Washington and Oregon extend lockdowns well into the summer. A coordinated, science-driven, national-level strategy is vital to an effective response. But at the moment, the U.S. federal government has communicated more like Brazil and Nicaragua, rather than Germany and New Zealand. The examples we highlight here are a warning to all of us.