(All from a US perspective)
There's been a crazy notion floating around from the start on this, that we can either keep our normal activities/economy (jobs, businesses, schools, etc) or deal with the pandemic.
However, you can't have anything normal unless the pandemic is under control. Because until it is, so many kinds of normal activities will be hit by an outbreak, and then your normal activity will fall apart and stop.
I think we could have had school this fall. But it would have meant much more serious efforts months ago, building up our fast testing capabilities, a commitment to ongoing mask, social distancing, and other mechanisms to control the spread (mandates, really).
Kind of missing the point of what it means to "get it under control"
You will have spread no matter what you do. The question is how much.
If prevalence of the virus is high, then the risk of spread is higher. At a high level of prevalence any systematically repeating and mixing groupings of people (such as school) is pretty much guaranteed to lead to an outbreak, which will stop or at least seriously disrupt and hinder that system (not to mention the sick and dead people from the outbreak).
At a low level or prevalence outbreaks will still occur, but only here and there. Some schools will have outbreaks and have to stop, but most will be able to keep going.
Widely available tests with fast turnaround is also part of this because it allows outbreaks to be detected earlier, when they are much smaller, which limits the disruption each outbreak causes (not to mention the deaths and sickness).
The point of all this is to have most of our normal activities and economy until a safe and effective vaccine is widely available.
Did they confirm this? I could also see issues with someone asymptomatic who was quarantined, but was at the 99th percentile for incubation period. With an R0 near 1, with enough people, you could miss the virus for even a few months.
It's really hard to contain, and NZ will likely be dealing with case like this on and off until there's a vaccine.
Read about 'flattening the curve'.
My dental hygienist, whom I spoke to this week, has a daughter at one of the community colleges, in a transfer program where she does 2 years at the CoCo and then gets admitted to one of the state colleges to finish her degree. All of her classes are online. She's delighted with it. She takes classes at home while also caring for her little sister, while Mom works.
I would much rather just suck it up and enter the workforce at this point. I don't know what I'd do with myself for the year, and I don't have enough credits to speedrun my degree in the spring. There's also some conflicting information about if I would keep my financial aid. I haven't taken the time to dig into it, because at that point I decided it wasn't worth it.
the fat that gets trimmed is what makes them better.
The real “fat” is the admin bloat at most universities. Most schools will continue to be in a precarious financial situation until that fat is cut, imho.
Assuming I take 12 classes a year and my classes average 15 students each, that puts the cost of providing a single class at $58,750.
What the heck is going on for universities to have such an insane cost structure.
"Paying for the Party" is a neat book here based on real life information from colleges.
"Most" cannot.
I suspect that my employer, as well as similar universities, will be more-or-less okay.
To be sure, there will be pain. Faculty hiring, for example, will take a huge hit -- I feel bad for everyone finishing up grad school and postdocs now, and who was anticipating hitting the academic job market.
In addition, there might be layoffs of tenured faculty, and/or closure of programs like history which are deeply worth preserving but which don't generate the big bucks. You might see a lot of sports get cut -- think swimming, wrestling, golf, etc. -- not the sort which get broadcast on TV. This already happened at Stanford.
But my estimation is that we, and similar universities, do not face an existential threat. Hopefully I'm right.
The schools that are most screwed are small, non-prestigious liberal arts colleges -- most of which are not very well known. Indeed, there were already a number of such closures before the pandemic hit.
It's definitely an existential threat to the system. The reason unis might survive are 1) government aid direct and indirect 2) Unis have otherwise heavily incumbent positions and the banks will provide money, maybe on ugly terms.
Most colleges are panicking right now, this is not the kind of situation they are in any way equipped to handle.
[1] https://www.newser.com/story/289974/2/colleges-face-existent...
I'm curious: under what conditions do you think the threat to Carolina (and other similar regional flagship schools) becomes "existential"?
E.g. classes go online for the Fall semester sometime in Spring, with little hope of reopening the campus for Spring.
Forever to thee.
In my opinion, when long-term demand for a traditional university education shows signs that it will significantly decline.
I just don't think we've seen it yet. (Nor have we seen severe short-term decline in demand. Enrollment is down less than I was expecting.) There are a variety of competitors such as edX, Coursera, etc., as well as university-affiliated "startups" such as SNHU's massive online program. For the most part they haven't caught on that much, and I don't think they will.
As tuition keeps rising, it will squeeze out smaller, less prestigious, and more expensive private schools that offer (in my opinion) questionable value for money. But I'd expect many of these students to choose state schools instead.
All this said, I don't have all that much insider knowledge, just strong opinions. :)
Cheers, again. I always forget that their might be other people from SC on this board. It's refreshing to be reminded.