At the end of June, 97% of college presidents reported that their universities planned to offer a mix of online and in-person learning in response to the coronavirus this fall, according to a survey by the American Council on Education.
But now, schools are increasingly reversing course, returning to online classes in response to the ongoing pandemic.
“What we’ve seen is that many schools that planned to re-open for at least some in-person instruction decided that they could not do so safely,” says Dr. Terry Hartle, senior vice president of government relations and public affairs at the American Council on Education. “But it’s always been the case that the course of the pandemic would determine the ability to open and the ability to stay open.”
“After consultation with our public health faculty experts, District of Columbia officials, University leadership, and monitoring the status of the COVID-19 pandemic locally, regionally and nationally, we have made the very difficult decision to move all undergraduate courses for the Fall 2020 semester fully online, and non-residential,” said Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick, Howard’s president, in a statement to the campus community.
Other institutions, however, welcomed students back to campus, quickly resulting in upticks in COVID-19 cases. At least 19 states had coronavirus outbreaks on college campuses by the end of August.
The University of Alabama, Duke University and North Carolina State University, among others, all saw swiftly rising cases after reopening. Notably, Notre Dame racked up 448 coronavirus cases in 20 days. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found at least 10 clusters of COVID-19 among students, spurring a fiery op-ed in The Daily Tarheel, the university’s student newspaper.
