Colleges and Universities almost universally plan to be open in the fall

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm genuinely not sure why people are skeptical about colleges announcing they'll reopen. They'd take such a huge financial hit if they didn't it seems inevitable.

Perhaps because they will take an even bigger hit if they bring everyone back and then they have to shut again four weeks later .....

And students, faculty and staff being hospitalized, and possibly dying, is not a good look. Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in families about the safety of the campus environment.

They have a greater risk of death and serious illness from suicide, alcohol, and drugs than they do from CV, but yet that doesn't stop them from opening to students year after year. Most every college will lose more students and faculty to every other cause of death than CV--some of them directly related to being a college campus. They make rational decisions based on calculated risk. That's why you are not running a university. You are not a rational person.

''

DP. Regarding the bold above: You do not understand what a "false equivalency" is yet you accuse that PP of not being a rational person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm genuinely not sure why people are skeptical about colleges announcing they'll reopen. They'd take such a huge financial hit if they didn't it seems inevitable.

Perhaps because they will take an even bigger hit if they bring everyone back and then they have to shut again four weeks later .....

+1

Poster in bold is right. Colleges have to plan with more care and more creativity than just "Throw open the doors this fall as usual" as some PPs seem to want. There's more to the equation of reopening. It will be a far worse look for colleges if they reopen as normal, then have an outbreak on campus, or the area in which they're located has an outbreak and ends up closing nonessential businesses, issuing stay at home orders etc. and otherwise curtailing everything around a college.

A cycle of open-closed repeating itself, or a cycle of outbreaks even if small ones, could potentially be a bigger hit to students' and parents' confidence than the current complete closures. And that confidence does matter because if parents and students lose it, they will pull out of colleges and the financial situations will only worsen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm genuinely not sure why people are skeptical about colleges announcing they'll reopen. They'd take such a huge financial hit if they didn't it seems inevitable.

Perhaps because they will take an even bigger hit if they bring everyone back and then they have to shut again four weeks later .....

And students, faculty and staff being hospitalized, and possibly dying, is not a good look. Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in families about the safety of the campus environment.

They have a greater risk of death and serious illness from suicide, alcohol, and drugs than they do from CV, but yet that doesn't stop them from opening to students year after year. Most every college will lose more students and faculty to every other cause of death than CV--some of them directly related to being a college campus. They make rational decisions based on calculated risk. That's why you are not running a university. You are not a rational person.

None of the other causes of death you mentioned are infectious diseases against which the general population has no natural immunity, and which have no cure and only very limited treatments available. Pretty hard to take a calculated risk when it is impossible to know what the infection rate will be in their area in the fall. Have these university officials checked with local hospitals to see what they predict about their capacity to handle sick patients from the college or university?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm genuinely not sure why people are skeptical about colleges announcing they'll reopen. They'd take such a huge financial hit if they didn't it seems inevitable.

Perhaps because they will take an even bigger hit if they bring everyone back and then they have to shut again four weeks later .....

+1

Poster in bold is right. Colleges have to plan with more care and more creativity than just "Throw open the doors this fall as usual" as some PPs seem to want. There's more to the equation of reopening. It will be a far worse look for colleges if they reopen as normal, then have an outbreak on campus, or the area in which they're located has an outbreak and ends up closing nonessential businesses, issuing stay at home orders etc. and otherwise curtailing everything around a college.

A cycle of open-closed repeating itself, or a cycle of outbreaks even if small ones, could potentially be a bigger hit to students' and parents' confidence than the current complete closures. And that confidence does matter because if parents and students lose it, they will pull out of colleges and the financial situations will only worsen.

Who here (or anywhere) is advocating for that? And which colleges have said they are doing that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have these university officials checked with local hospitals to see what they predict about their capacity to handle sick patients from the college or university?

Capacity varies by location and of course over time, but for those interested, there is some capacity info by state here: https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/virginia Scroll down to the section "Hospital Resource Use." In this example, VA is currently using 2/3 of available COVID ICU beds and 15% of available COVID hospital beds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have these university officials checked with local hospitals to see what they predict about their capacity to handle sick patients from the college or university?

Capacity varies by location and of course over time, but for those interested, there is some capacity info by state here: https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/virginia Scroll down to the section "Hospital Resource Use." In this example, VA is currently using 2/3 of available COVID ICU beds and 15% of available COVID hospital beds.

Keep in mind that the IHME model records data weirdly for daily deaths, as it appears to put all released deaths on the date of release even though a few days ago, several states added a bunch of deaths that were from earlier dates as they went through older records. (That is, for some states, the IHME chart has a spike in daily deaths, but they were intended to be added to past dates, not the date that shows the spike.)

[Anonymous]

Even if colleges and universities open on time this fall, they’re not going to stay open for the whole academic year. A second wave of infections is inevitable.

Frankly, I think we’re going to see a record number of schools close permanently in the coming year.

[Anonymous]

Also the used ICU beds number are all "projected" and not actual data. Of course, you can't get good data on hospitalizations from the states.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even if colleges and universities open on time this fall, they’re not going to stay open for the whole academic year. A second wave of infections is inevitable.

Frankly, I think we’re going to see a record number of schools close permanently in the coming year.

Please provide a cite for this, oh man of science. After all, apparently one side of this debate is driven by science and the other is not.

[Anonymous]

Of course they are - they can't risk not collecting full tuition just as towns with corporate real estate apts/condos aren't about to let kids not show up.

My prediction: by the end of Sept-Oct by the latest, kids will be sent home for the rest of fall and all of spring semester but we'll already be on the hook. Again, all classes will move online and lots of majors will be screwed - performing arts, STEM, architecture etc.

[Anonymous]

Janet Napolitano basically announced the UCs will all be online only next year. UC San Diego already announced they will be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Janet Napolitano basically announced the UCs will all be online only next year. UC San Diego already announced they will be.

No she didn't.

As for the fall plan, Napolitano described college campuses as a “complicated thing” because of large lecture halls and communal living in dormitories. Those realities make social distancing a significant challenge.

She suggested campus housing will not reopen without widespread testing, contact tracing and a place to quarantine students who test positive.

“I think it’s fair to say none of our campuses will fully reopen,” Napolitano said. “I think what some of our campuses are exploring is a mix, where there will be some material delivered in a classroom or lab setting, so-called wet labs, and other classes will continue to be online.”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Coronavirus-and-college-UC-president-Napolitano-15237939.php?utm_campaign=CMS%20Sharing%20Tools%20(Premium)&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral

[Anonymous]

I fully agree with everyone saying colleges should not reopen as normal, but I also don't think it's even remotely plausible to think that a bunch of colleges are going to keep their campuses entirely closed as they have through the end of this semester. That would quite literally be a death blow for a not insignificant number of colleges, and regardless of all the potential consequences, they are absolutely going to do everything in their power not to have to shut down. This seems utterly obvious to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Janet Napolitano basically announced the UCs will all be online only next year. UC San Diego already announced they will be.

I don't think a single college has said they would be "online only" thus fair. Almost all seem to be on campus with an online option. Not sure why this is so hard of a concept for people to understand, it's the direction they all seem to be going.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even if colleges and universities open on time this fall, they’re not going to stay open for the whole academic year. A second wave of infections is inevitable.

Frankly, I think we’re going to see a record number of schools close permanently in the coming year.

Please provide a cite for this, oh man of science. After all, apparently one side of this debate is driven by science and the other is not.

Look it up yourself. It will take you 10 seconds. Is that too much work for you?