Should I Stay Or Should I Go: Colleges’ And College Students’ Next Dilemma

Just weeks into the fall semester, one that promised to be unlike any fall semester seen before – and that is delivering on that promise – colleges and universities are facing questions about when and whether to send students home if there is a Covid-19 outbreak on their campuses. The results of elaborate, carefully planned, and now executed reopening plans continue to be mixed. Some campuses are reporting successful campus reopenings (return of students) with regular testing, very low numbers of reported cases (< 1% positive tests, symptomatic or asymptomatic) strict social distancing guidelines, required masks, and other safety protocols. Others are reporting moderate positive test numbers (1-4%), while others appear to be trending toward or even exceeding 10% positivity. In these cases, testing protocols, safety guidelines and enforcement, pre-arrival testing, and perhaps most importantly decisions about holding large athletic events with or without fans in attendance may vary from those adopted by schools having greater success containing and minimizing the spread of the virus.

Now comes the next decision point for college leaders: do they close the campus and move all classes online when the number of infected students (or positivity rate) crosses a certain threshold level? And what is that threshold? And if that’s a campus-wide threshold, what happens if an outbreak occurs at one or more residence halls? Are those students (potentially hundreds of individuals) quarantined in their residence hall, somewhere else on or near campus, or are they sent home? If the campus-wide threshold is reached and the decision is made to move all classes online, are students (effectively) quarantined in their on-campus or off-campus residence? Or are they sent home?

These questions may be answered differently by different college presidents and their teams, and for good (and presumably carefully considered) reasons. Institution size (number of students), setting (urban, suburban, rural), student population (in-state vs. out-of-state), on-campus density (including percentage of students housed on-campus), proximity to a major metropolitan area or location in a state struggling to contain the virus all play a part in these decisions.

We already have seen many schools, large and small, sputter with (and often reverse) their reopening plans. Some delayed the in-person start of classes by two weeks (choosing to start the semester online), some started in-person by pivoted back to remote only (allowing students living on-campus to remain) with intention to move back to in-person classes within two weeks, while others made the more dramatic decision well in advance of (or in rare cases, immediately prior to or even right after) the start of classes to move the entire semester online.

As this has been happening, some students (either on their own or at the urging of their families) have decided to return home in favor of online options (at their own or another college or university), or even leave school entirely. As might have been predicted, the population most at risk of stopping-out this fall includes low-income students, students from underrepresented groups, and first-generation college students. The consequences of this rapidly unfolding phenomenon will be devastating to students, to families, to colleges and universities that have worked so hard to advance their access missions, and to society.

But the next big decision college and university leaders face will be whether and when to send students home. And even that one decision is multi-tiered and multi-faceted (to say nothing of fraught with danger). First, the decision to move all classes to remote (vs. in-person or some combination of in-person and remove, often called hybrid or “hyflex” learning) does not necessarily mean kicking students out of their on-campus residence halls. And of course colleges and universities have no authority to force students out of off-campus housing. A decision by a student to return home may depend on the college’s plans to return again to full campus operations (e.g., after two weeks of mandated quarantine) including in-person classes. In the grand scheme – given the range of challenges and possible decisions that could be required, and given the success most colleges and universities have had in creating remote learning options (and the relative comfort faculty and students now have with those modalities) – the decision to move classes to all-remote is not the more significant decision. Whether or not to send students home remains the largest and single most challenging decision point facing college presidents this fall.

Which is the right decision? That depends who you ask, and who you believe, and if you understand their motivations. Colleges and universities have to balance the need for instructional continuity; the commitment to the health and safety of their students; the liability of creating conditions that put the health of students, faculty, staff, or community members at risk; and the need to minimize financial risk (loss of revenue, additional expenses whether for mitigation or litigation) and reputational risk. Public health officials have overlapping but not identical priorities. Even the public health community is not entirely in agreement on this point, with some asserting it is safer, on balance, to keep students on-campus rather than send them home to their communities as potential spreaders of the virus. Other public health officials appear to cling to the belief that (residential) college campuses are among the worst settings for containing the spread of the virus and that students are safer at home. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading public health and infectious disease voice (and the closest we have to a national response to the pandemic), cautions against sending thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands college-age spreaders back to their families and home communities.

And what about the students? Students want to be back at school, back on campus, living independently, and back with their friends. Many are making clear that they want this so much they are willing to abide by restrictions on social gatherings, strict social distancing requirements, mask requirements, reporting requirements, and testing. They are assuming positions of personal and shared responsibility, for their individual safety and for the collective safety of their classmates and their colleges. Others, it seems, are taking less responsibility, are more willing to take risks with their own and their peers’ health and safety, and are repeatedly demonstrating either ignorance or bravado (or both). Geography, political leaning, population educational level, size of school, and importance or big-time sports all appear to play some role (whether through correlation or causation) in determining whether students are allies or offenders in the effort to contain the spread of the Coronavirus on their campuses and into their communities.

Graduate students represent a special group on our university campuses, often with responsibilities for instruction and research. They are more likely to be older and more mature, to work and gather in smaller groups, and to follow guidelines and observe restrictions. It may be possible to maintain graduate students living and working on campus if the decision is made to move all classes online, and even if the decision is made to send the undergraduate students home. This can help the university to ensure research continuity (facility operation and the conduct of research), avoiding a repeat of significant problems that resulted from the sudden pivot to remote operations last spring. While far less publicized than extensive efforts to ensure continuity of instruction, most large universities have spent just as much time ensuring continuity of research. At some of the largest research universities, especially those including academic medicine (medical schools and medical research), the costs associated with interruption, cessation, and restarting critical and often time-sensitive research were a significant fraction of their reported total costs resulting from the pandemic (lost revenue and response expenses). If the decision to move instruction online, or even more students off-campus, can be separated from the decision to suspend ongoing research and the continued operation of essential research facilities, the costs of another pivot will be lower.

The choice of whether or not to send student home remains the largest and single most challenging decision point facing college presidents this fall. But it won’t be the last. Next up will be decisions about the spring semester. This pandemic marches on, and so must our higher educational institutions.