Amid the coronavirus and with the fall semester quickly approaching, colleges and universities have finalized their plans for reopening.
What We Know:
- With the coronavirus blazing and fall semester around the corner, there has been a lot of debate on the matter of schools reopening while adhering to social distancing regulations. Recently, colleges have announced their plans to reopen while keeping their students, faculty, and staff safe.
- Stanford said that their freshmen and sophomores will be the only ones on campus in the fall, while the juniors and seniors will study remotely from home. Harvard plans on their first-year students and other students in special circumstances to be on campus in the fall, and in the spring, freshmen will move off-campus and the seniors will move on campus.
- Cornell University is allowing all of its students back on campus, with a mixture of in-person and online instruction. According to Cornell, their decision was based on an analysis that despite classes being remote, students will return to off-campus housing in Ithaca, N.Y., and the University would not be able to control their behavior or enforce them to get tested.
- With that said, it seems students would be better on campus where restrictions would be in place than students doing whatever they want off-campus, where there is a higher risk of catching the virus.
- A lot of HBCUs like Spelman College, Florida A&M University, and Howard University have released almost similar reopening plans. A lot of the dorm rooms will be transformed into single occupancies, however, Howard University will keep their double rooms as they are except for the smaller ones, which will turn into singles. FAMU and Howard are allowing first-year students and sophomores on-campus housing and will prioritize students with special circumstances but cannot guarantee due to the limited number of beds. Juniors and seniors will continue their education remotely.
- Spelman, however, is only offering in-person classes and residency to first-year students while sophomores, juniors, and seniors are to continue remotely. Spelman’s reopening plans for the fall will begin Aug. 1 and end Jan. 31. FAMU’s reopening plans will begin in August and is considering the idea that when students leave for Thanksgiving Break, they will not return to campus and will continue remote learning.
- Despite some classes going remote, very few colleges and universities are offering tuition discounts like Princeton, one of the few universities offering a tuition discount because of its limitation. So, instead of students paying $53,890, students will be charged 10 percent less –– $48,501 for the coming year, according to a spokesman, Ben Chan. Spelman’s tuition and mandatory fees will remain flat for 2020-2021, and a tuition discount of 10 percent and a 40 percent discount on mandatory fees will be factored into the flat tuition rate for completely remote students.
- Although Harvard will not be discounting its tuition and fees, the university said it would offer a summer term next year of two tuition-free courses for all students who had to study away from campus for the full academic year.
Although classes and living situations are changing, grading policies will return to normal, instead of the pass/fail options, which was given at the start of the virus.
