Stanford and Harvard, while offering some non-selective continuing ed / MOOC programs that leverage their name, are not looking to increase their enrollment for traditional degrees. Their exclusivity is part of their appeal.

This is the whole reason schools want students back. They’re desperate to recover some of this cash flow. They have huge budgets and vast numbers of administrative staff to pay. Without the revenue from residence leases and meal plans, they’re in real trouble.

There is a similar situation with private schools. Some of the demand comes from the fact that it is also a babysitting service, forced social group, networking opportunity for parents.

Signed a Swede who spent an exchange year in Texan upper middle class suburban public high school.

Thinking back on it I now see how thought out it was. The clock facing the school yard which everything depended on. In second and third grade every time it was PE, shop class or something requiring a different place than the homeroom it was scheduled so the teacher would bring the class if necessary, later just letting us go. Fourth and fifth it could be right after a break trusting us to get there on our own.

Then starting sixth grade we were essentially on our own. The first class started anywhere between from 8 to 10 in the assigned room. During breaks we could go anywhere, the only limit being to get back in time. Sometimes having gaps in the schedule leading to some time to kill. Often going the public library, or playing something, or hanging out in the school building or buying coke and mentos because kids....

Then choosing high school and field of study based on interests all over town getting there using public transportation, which every student that had to travel longer than a couple of kilometers is given a pass for which is valid during school hours.

Also getting the government stipend of ~$100 every month having to learn manage your own money.

Wow, this was a trip down memory lane.

One thing I vividly remember is feeling like a child again when starting American high school. A contrasting memory which stands out is during lunch getting in a friend's truck sneaking out to buy fast food for lunch and "stealthily" avoiding the parking lot monitors to not get into trouble. Wtf.

I’m in university right now. I just finished a term of online classes. I’ve definitely witnessed those benefits being enjoyed by other students but I haven’t had the time to enjoy them myself; my program is simply too difficult for that. The most I’ve enjoyed is going out for drinks with friends once a week, and maybe the occasional meal out on another night.

The ones joining frats, partying constantly, playing sports and all that must have trivial classes. Either that or they’re already so rich and privileged that they can afford to fail courses and keep going.

You'd be surprised. Unless you're with someone 24/7 you actually don't know what else they are doing. I knew a girl in college who you might think partied all the time. I mean, she was always out and about, so makes sense. Except, the few people who knew her better got to see her literally study for 24 straight hours by sleeping 15-20 minutes here and there, slam a diet mountain dew on the way to class and ace the test. These were non-trivial classes, and she graduated with a 4.0 by the way.

Was this a healthy way to go through college? I don't think so. It certainly was not how I did it. But it did show me a level of effort around studying/working I didn't think was possible, and also that what people do in private will surprise you.

I disagree completely. Some people are just inhumanly capable of balancing everything. One of the smartest people I met while in school was in a sorority and partied hard. She was also extremely successful academically and is currently attending medical school.

I also had my share of fun, but I would never have been able to keep up with her. Fortunately my academic ambitions don't go much farther than my BS in comp. sci.

Just because you can't manage the balancing act doesn't mean no one else can.

She’s the exception that proves the rule. I met at least half a dozen people in first year who partied only moderately and have since flunked out of the school. They’ve moved to other schools with less demanding programs and tried to put their lives back together.

I also met someone who studied for an entire term to pass the MCAT and got into medical school. She seemed like the type of person who really knew how to balance her life though. Not a crazy partier but someone with close friendships.

When I was in college from 2002 to 2006, the thing I heard about sororities was that joining one usually helped a GPAs, and they were really good about keeping an archive of old exams and notes.

Joining a frat hurt your GPA.

Not true at all. Perhaps they may not end up with the best GPA but they'll do good enough to get a useful degree while having a strong network. It may not have been the healthiest lifestyle for the time being, but they made it out fine.

Source: A large part of my college social circle who ended up in fruitful STEM/consulting/medicine careers.

I don't know why you're assuming this, but I'm a little insulted. I was an NCAA athlete and a common refrain I always heard was that the most valuable skill you get from it is incredible time management. I didn't kill time on sites like HN or reddit or facebook (the only social network at the time). We partied a decent amount too. About half of the particular people I played and partied with now have doctorates from world class institutions. Nearly all of us have STEM degrees.

Sound familiar? (And that was several thousand years ago)

If you are referring to the USA, I disagree. Unless the local county health departments or states require schools to go virtual, I don't see it.

If a large public university experiences an outbreak, I don't think they will go virtual until someone dies. I do not think large private schools will go virtual unless the government requires it.

The USA has no centralized method of handling the pandemic, so each state is making their own rules and guidelines. We have professional sports teams playing outside bubbles and many college football programs are continuing.

Many school districts outside urban areas are opening and seeing outbreaks, but continue to stay open. As a country, we blew it and seem to have decided to go about this piecemeal.

I hope your son and your family stay well.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/us/georgia-school-coronav...

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-america-blew-it-b3d84ea3-7...

When covid case counts mount on campus, there will be huge pressure from media and concerned parents to quash the threat instantly -- something impossible to do without extensive 24 hour PCR testing already being in place, which no school will have.

All it will take is images of one pretty cheerleader on a ventilator to instantly change policy for an entire region and all the schools therein. If enough parents lose faith, school will be out indefinitely.

"Along with student death, these triggers to campus closure include “significant actions” by the governor or other public officials, sharply diminished hospital capacity, testing shortages on campus and unmanageable, widespread clusters of cases."

Edit: Especially if fueled by some notable event.

Before now I would agree with you. From what has been reported schools in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Indiana are staying open after large outbreaks. These are elementary and high schools, so maybe it'll be different with universities.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/13/us/schools-quarantined-corona...

Considering every college in America takes federal student loan money this seems like a really easy place for the federal government to take decisive action to force a semester online and cap charges for the benefit of students and the federal budget.

As an aside, equally scummy are universities that pulled the rug from under students very close to move in. My sister got kicked out of her housing by the university a few days before move in, and basically had to accept that she would be staying home for the fall, as rent prices near school nearly doubled overnight.

Wait is that really what happened? I anticipated that rent prices would drop because most students would just go home and there wouldn't be a market for people wanting to live in the college part of town.

Do you mean they're still having in-person classes required but are just not offering housing? That's definitely scummy, that's the kind of thing that would have changed people's admission acceptance decisions.

No, I’m not an Asian tiger mom...wrong gender, wrong ethnicity.

Also, a gap year at this time? Fun.

Follow the money.

The colleges are getting paid regardless. The local landlords, businesses, etc. that usually get to skim easy money off college students don't. The colleges have to walk the line between screwing the students by giving them all covid (bad press -> less money) and pissing off the locals, who will just use their voting power to use the local government to take money (less favorable regulator environment -> less money) from the colleges if the colleges don't let them skim enough gravy.

Here's Notre Dame's tracker: https://here.nd.edu/our-approach/dashboard/

My theory is that the semester will be shut down just in time for nobody to get their money back (where students otherwise would have taken a gap year or something). Maybe I'm just cynical.

I agree that you are correct about this, even here in Boston we've just got so many colleges that even if the one I work at has no problems Boston in general seems likely to have a big enough uptick that it will impact everyone. That's a lot of students traveling here by plane all at once and even if they're quarantining when they arrive I bet their parents aren't...

Flu, mono, the clap. It's why you're supposed to be up to date on your vaccinations.

It's just what happens when a bunch of people who've been in separate microbiomes come together and start sharing the same air.

Happens to people who move to different countries too.

Common enough in basic training that it's got a nickname as well. https://afwm.org/life-during-bmt/bmt-illnesses/

EDIT: *infinitesimal danger

And claiming that coronavirus poses "no danger" is simply untrue. You can claim that the danger is over-stated, but young adults can and do get COVID-19

Yes, they can, and do. And they are overwhelmingly likely to have nothing more than a mild illness. The danger has been drastically exaggerated.

In the US, fewer than 300 people under the age of 25 have died from Covid:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

Moreover, when you look at the data, nearly all of those deaths have significant co-morbidities.

So even assuming that the personal danger is acceptable (which isn't a given; 300 deaths sounds like a horrible and avoidable tragedy to me) death figures among healthy 20-somethings don't capture the full risk of keeping a university open.

Well now you're shifting the goalposts.

The comment was that the students are at risk. Someone shows you that they're not at risk, and you pivot to danger to "townsfolk".

Here's the thing: those students don't just disappear, and they don't stop interacting with other college-aged students, townsfolk and employees simply because they're not at school. And if you want to protect parents, shipping their kids off to live on their own seems like a better way to do that than to have those kids living at home.

(As far as "avoidable tragedies" go: during the same period that those 300 kids died of covid, literally thousands died of all other causes. More died of accidents than died of Covid. I think it's time to admit that your sense of concern is mis-calibrated.)

Assuming they're not stupid, evil, or politically conservative, the students are probably concerned about the risk of spreading the illness and the attendant harm that could cause, as well as what it could do to themselves.

Is it a human right to have a job, venture to the grocery store, and see friends and family?

Now there could be debate about whether that new number is "acceptable" or not. But we shouldn't use the success of the quarantine-like policies to argue that quarantine-like policies are unnecessary.

This is an assumption, and it's a bad one. The paucity of deaths in young people is true around the world, regardless of lockdown policy. Sweden, for example, does not have a higher proportion of young people dying.

It is well established that physical distancing limits the spread of virus transmitted via respiratory droplets. If you refute that, I would require significant peer-reviewed literature on your side. https://academic.oup.com/jid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/inf...

It is also irrefutable that contracting COVID-19 carries risk - especially for high-risk individuals with comorbidities (yes, even young people)

Combined, I don't see how you can come up with a hypothesis where getting people together would somehow be equally as safe as keeping people apart.

Again, this is just one aspect that policy makers have to consider. There is also the economy, mental health, etc. I think having those discussions is very interesting - how much should we protect our health vs our way of life? There are very valid arguments against continuing the shut-down.

But acknowledging that social practices directly impact virus transmission is a necessary step to have meaningful discussion.

The study you provided does not support your claim that physical distancing works as it is implemented in the US (6 feet of separation).

> We found that the evidence base for current guidelines is sparse, and the available data do not support the 1- to 2-meter (≈3–6 feet) rule of spatial separation. Of 10 studies on horizontal droplet distance, 8 showed droplets travel more than 2 meters (≈6 feet), in some cases up to 8 meters (≈26 feet).

It's also likely Covid is spread by aerosols. There needs to be more research but it is very likely based on the details of superspreader events.

What assumption is that? I stated a fact that you can verify with a Google search.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107913/number-of-corona...

Can you respond to the rest of the comment?

You know, like professors, admin staff, mature students, parents and grandparents, ...

173,000 people have died in the USA this year from Covid 19 and the toll is rising.[1] that’s more than the total number of cases (22,000) in Australia. We got 10% the population of the USA and 0.2% of the deaths.

With all due respect, the USA has the worst Covid 19 rates in the entire fucking world. It is a travesty. You guys can say what you like, but your plan is literally killing people.

And specifically to your point: Do you think kids teach themselves? Kids are part of families, kids are taught by adults, kids catch busses driven by adults, kids meals are cooked by adults. The death rate of kids is irrelevant. Since kids can still spread the disease, they should be isolated like everyone else.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Look a bit further down... Australia 17.2, Vietnam 0.26, Thailand 0.84, New Zealand 4.5. Indonesia, with a comparable population to the USA but far more densely populated - and far poorer - is just 23.9.

The USA, richest country in the world, reserve currency of the world, has the 8th worse death rate in the whole world. That is vile. Meanwhile, your moron in chief is pointing to New Zealand and saying it’s out of control there because they had an “outbreak” of 9 cases. 9!

That’s roughly how many new cases the USA has every 18 seconds.

There is no excuse for what’s happened in the USA.

I'd be surprised if that happened. Stanford's in a heavily populated part of California. It might make sense for them, based on the student population (mostly rich or at least well off) and location. My university has plans to keep students in campus housing even if we're forced to go 100% online, and I think from a public health perspective, that's a good thing. You don't want college students moving around if you have an outbreak. And once they're home, they're definitely not going to all just sit in the basement - they'll still be going to bars and parties. That would be a disaster. And the only place that there's hope they'll be tested or interact with others that are tested is on campus.

> My son's state university is forcing students to return in person.

That's horrible. As much as possible, we're accommodating students that feel safer online. About the only way I could see someone being forced to return is if their remaining credits were a lab science class. The worst thing you can possibly do is increase the density on campus. Everyone here is encouraged to work off campus as much as possible. Many of our courses are online or hybrid, where you reserve the in-person interactions for the parts where it delivers real value over the alternative. It's that 20% where face to face matters, not the other 80%.