19 ms·

The nightmare that colleges face this fall

129 points by jelliclesfarm 6y ago

blakesterz 6y ago
“If I’m a leader,” McClure told me, “I better be prepared to have a really good explanation for why it is that I brought people back to campus—understanding the risks—if somebody falls ill and dies.” I feel like that needs to be WHEN not IF. It's not an easy decision and I'm glad I'm not in any position to make it. But certainly, it's when, not if.
Simulacra 6y ago
Could this bring reform to university administration, pay, tenure, and the general bloat that most universities have to carry?
- jonahbenton 6y ago
  No, because the admin is the "management" and it will squeeze everyone else- students, profs, staff- before itself. Hence eg schools ceasing contributions to faculty retirement plans, and no consequences for management creating a model that is so incredibly revenue sensitive.
  - Balgair 6y ago
    "We're in this together" is Latin for "no tuition won't go down, my mortgage won't pay itself".
  - ImaCake 6y ago
    > because the admin is the "management" and it will squeeze everyone else I participate in the research side of universities in various ways and this is exactly how it happens. The bureaucracy is absolutely the enemy when trying to get research done or preventing some arsehole in management from removing a useful service. I am currently trying to get hired as a research assistant (basically a vague title covering people who do research as part of a lab but without the ambitions of an academic) and lab heads will routinely try to source talent in a way that avoids the official university hiring policy. They do this because the official way is slow, stupid, and gets administration people involved who just get in the way. Not only that, they deal with plenty of university administration already, and they think it is mostly useless or needlessly complicated.
- neel_k 6y ago
  Most likely it will do the opposite. Losing a year of revenue will straight up kill a bunch of universities, just like it would kill most businesses. However, the following year there will still be the same number of 18 year olds who want to go to college as usual, and so surviving universities will grow much bigger. Bigger universities will grow bigger administrative arms, which will further isolate the leadership from students and academic and enable even more extractive policies, both because increased social distance makes cruelty more thinkable, and because the loss of competition makes it harder for students and academics to find an alternative. In other words, wiping out a bunch of businesses reduces competition, and less competitive markets are more monopolistic.
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    there will still be the same number of 18 year olds who want to go to college as usual That’s by no means certain at all. It’s plausible that many will realise that the degree isn’t as valuable as it once was and pursue a trade instead.
    - nerdponx 6y ago
      Or they pursue similar coursework without all the dressing.
    - nradov 6y ago
      It's not like we have a lot of empty slots in trade schools or apprenticeship programs either.
- jldugger 6y ago
  Well, considering I tripled my earnings by leaving a university job, I don't think they have much to 'save' on the pay dimension.
- downerending 6y ago
  If you think about it, tenure isn't really an obvious problem (since it only affects quality, which most don't care that much about). As for pay, at least at public schools, it's not very high. Administrative bloat? Some of it, like the diversity infrastructure, is mandated from without (regulations and/or legal concerns). Some, like vanity recycling programs, will indeed get whacked. In truth, though, the reforms that would really matter are (1) reduce college loan subsidies to a rational level, and (2) increase state funding of public universities.
threatofrain 6y ago
Am I wrong to say that K-8 education faces a similar sort of problem, except that college students likely live with other college students, whereas kids are far more likely to live with family with older folk? Why should colleges be expected to be safer than K-8? Why must they resort to impromptu web solutions? Also, if there's a consensus on risk and response, shouldn't that be coordinated at a central level instead of institutions each making their own calls?
- vkou 6y ago
  Because K-8 provides childcare, without which a society where all the adults in a household are working quickly starts unraveling. Whereas you can close all colleges for a year, with a much smaller impact.
  - jonahbenton 6y ago
    If you close all colleges for a year, without substantial liquidity support that is not going to be forthcoming, many (25%) will never reopen.
    - gowld 6y ago
      There are too many private colleges so that seems fine.
    - vkou 6y ago
      Which will create opportunities for leaner, slimmer, more efficient startup colleges to take their place. I'm not talking about coding boot camps, I'm talking about institutions that are more similar to trade schools... Or European universities. All that you need to educate people is a large hall, an instructor, and a whiteboard.
      - jonahbenton 6y ago
        With respect, while I am sympathetic to the creative destructive dogma of capitalism, I see reality considerably differently. I don't mean to be banal but the business of colleges is not "education". A large hall, an instructor, and a whiteboard is not competitive from the perspective of the customer base, nor is it attractive from the perspective of those who would populate the whiteboard with whatever. What parents and students pay for is essentially a moderately supervised, branded, summer sleepaway camp experience (full year) filled with nice sounding time-occupying activities and vague, often unfulfilled, and also unaccountable promises that at the end of the camp experience someone will be willing to pay to utilize the time of the student, rather than the student/parents paying to have their time occupied. There are various ways to creatively package the elements of that experience into a product, but in the "lean" formulations- like Lambda School- there is no real estate, no large hall. Real estate is expensive. I think what we actually would see- are already seeing- in the closure of the bespoke, idiosyncratic small private colleges likely to die is the chain restaurant version of the bespoke, idiosyncratic small family restaurants that have largely gone by the wayside in American culture. They will have a consistent brand, will cost maybe a little less, will pay their mostly expendable teaching staff considerably less, with no tenure (though performance bonuses and maybe equity grants for the stars, the way any sensibly managed business operates these days), with a manufactured curriculum delivered consistently across the "franchises" and with lots of entertainment and parent-appealing safety/oversight options, lots of addons for extra fees (semester abroad, anyone?), and some structure around the time-occupying activities that may- no guarantees- lead to eventual employment. Welcome to Olive Garden, can I take your classroom order please? Mediocre consistency at scale is how America works. Cheers.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
This week I went to a gym that just recently opened up. While attendance was way down (I'd say ~1/3 of usual) there were still a good amount of people there, and I was the only person, besides staff, wearing a mask. At this point I see another explosion of coronavirus cases as just math. I mean, it's like stamping out most of a fire so you're left with only a few burning embers, so you say "Great, time to reopen, lets dump these giant bags of dry leaves onto these embers." Yes, many (most?) people are still staying home where I live, but for many places that have opened up I see zero change in behavior - there were some viral videos last weekend of packed bars and events. I contrast that with other places (like Germany) that actually appear to have a plan in place of how they will be able to open up safely. AFAICT our plan in the US appears to be "thoughts and prayers".
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  I would say I've almost felt a degree of peer pressure to not stay home after the stay at home order lifts here. Even though I really am not comfortable with the measures everyone has taken here. I agree I think a second wave is imminent.
  - throwaway122378 6y ago
    I’d love to hear your argument for doing anything other than opening up back to normal (not the new normal) while the elderly and at risk continue staying at home (in addition to anyone that feels more comfortable staying home).
    - majormajor 6y ago
      How do you propose to go back to "normal" because of your own "(in addition to anyone that feels more comfortable staying home)." It would get worse, there, too, if people did return to normal and cases spiked. Versus cities that are now in "new normal" and still full of people being much more cautious. If cases didn't spike - there are those who believe the flattening of case rates isn't a result of behavioral changes but was some hidden factor - then "the new normal" will continue, but you won't be back to the old one. If cases do spike, "the new normal" will get even less close to the old normal, because more and more people will self-select back into staying home. Otherwise you have to get a way more coherent government plan to get on top of the spread. Like tracking and finding and isolating cases fast. And doing more to protect the people in essential jobs which are conducive for big outbreaks.
esotericn 6y ago
Thinking back to my university experience - if you told me that I was going to be doing it in front of a screen, I'd have taken a gap year. If I'd already paid and you refused to refund me, I'd use that gap year to travel to campus, administrators' homes, the lot, and let everyone know that you've stolen enormous amounts of money from hundreds of thousands. Teenage me has a hell of a lot of energy, health, and time on their hands. It's so ridiculous an idea as to be absurd. Do you want social breakdown? This is how you get mass riots. Reading what's facing the US at the moment (I'm British) I honestly worry about whether there will be some sort of military standoff if the government doesn't step up _now_ and put together a coherent plan for the nation. There are tens of millions unemployed, graduates are entering an economy that's essentially been deleted, and new students are having the knife twisted in them before they've even started. People need _hope_. I'm angry on behalf of you guys.
- jonahbenton 6y ago
  Not sarcastic or cynical- chaos and violence is in Trump's express interest. He and his cohort- Bannon et al- have been saying it out loud for a long time now. They are just not taken "literally or seriously."
  - jonahbenton 6y ago
    Re: downvote- as a factual matter Trump and cohort are saying that chaos and violence are their goals and have been for a long time. Stop being in denial.
    - well_that_sucks 6y ago
      link to evidence please
      - jonahbenton 6y ago
        Start with Josh Green. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/21/16000914/steve-bannon-devils-bargain-josh-green https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/21/16000914/s...
marcoperaza 6y ago
The chance of a college kid dying from coronavirus is exceedingly small. If they aren't sick in some special way (severe diabetes, HIV), then why are we even worried? Isn't this just an easy way to let the virus pass through a huge chunk of the population while they are away from their older, more vulnerable family members?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- riotnrrd 6y ago
  You're forgetting about the increased risks to campus workers, administrators, staff, professors, people with compromised immune systems, people who live or near or with the elderly or people with compromised immune systems, and the workers at local businesses just to name a few.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- anoffvu 6y ago
  This is an interesting thought. However, the risk of spread to the communities that house said colleges is greatly increased. I got to school in Boston and can only imagine the spread via off campus activities, public transport, and use of community spaces. We could be sparing our parents and endangering a whole other population. But college students could be far enough removed from their communities for this to make sense, don’t know of anything to back that up though.
- callalex 6y ago
  This is a USA-specific problem, but a lot of students are too poor to have health insurance. Getting covid for these young people would ruin their life permanently at a very young age.
  - tjohns 6y ago
    Is this common for universities across the US? The university I went to (USC) required that all students had to either submit proof of insurance or pay additional fees as part of their tuition to join the university's health plan. Not having health insurance was not an option if you wanted to enroll. (This was about 15 years ago, though I just checked and they still have this policy.)
bsder 6y ago
> revenue-generating sports. I always laugh when I see this. If you shut down all sports, all but something like the 5 top sports universities (and I think I'm being generous--if I remember correctly only UT-Austin is demonstrably profitable) would see a net profit--sometimes significantly so since the coaches are often some of the highest paid employees.
- abakker 6y ago
  Profit is what's left over after salaries. Break-even sports would still be paying plenty of people for their time and giving them jobs to feed their families.
- csa 6y ago
  I think your comment is directionally correct, but... 1. This article from 2015 (http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/athletics-departments-make-more-they-spend-still-minority http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/athlet...) puts it at 24. That sounds closer to correct to me. 2. There are substantial knock-on effects for university donations during big years that are not counted in the profit or loss of an athletic department. These benefits are spread wide throughout the NCAA. Winning a championship (even league rather than NCAA), beating a rival, or just making the NCAA tourney in basketball can be a boost. 3. Sustained excellence can change the face of a university in ways that money cannot. The best recent example is the change of the student body at Alabama during Saban’s tenure. Just some ideas that go beyond sports revenue dollars.
monk_e_boy 6y ago
The teaching facility that I work, just a few days before the lock down it was business as usual. We all knew that we were supposed to distance, but how? The cafe was chock full of students, the libraries full to bursting. All lectures full. Tiny corridoors, limited parking, 20 busses full of students.... And we ALL knew it was crazy. We can't magic up new buildings, or new classrooms or lecture halls. We lecture 20+ students in rooms that seat .... wait for it .... 20(ish) students. I have no idea how to social distance in there. Half students in? How do I teach half a class, then the other half? Do they magic up a second Monday for me to teach in? And half students, they are still less than 2m apart. Outside? Teaching IT and coding? Huh? Exams? Busses? The car park? Older / elderly lecturers - especially those in management. What do with they then? A fair few of our students are nurses so they know the risks and are happy to inform everyone. I think we'll open and just hope for the best. Some people are going to get sick and there's not much we can do to avoid it. Unless we stop education for a year.
brentis 6y ago
Schools are screwed, this is just the perfect storm. Go spend $35yr on a middling state school or top 10 online program for $20k. Pretty sure the cachet of top 10 schools will make it an easy decision. They have tons of brand potential to unleash.
- courtf 6y ago
  Yep. Thousands of schools are going to close down in the next decade unless they get a bailout. The elite schools will be just fine, this will all happen at 2nd and 3rd rate schools. No one is paying those prices for a severely reduced experience unless the brand is incredibly strong.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - itsspring 6y ago
    Most students I’ve met have no idea how their loans work or what APR is, so I’m sure they’ll keep paying. It’s sad but true
ryeguy_24 6y ago
Maybe this is a perfect opportunity to cut costs and make college more affordable in the process. Higher education is getting quite expensive and I believe these costs should be rationalized. If you take the average cost of some higher end schools (say 150k) and look at the opportunity cost of investing that in the stock market for 40 years. That’s about 15x return (7% for 40 years). Thats $2.25M at retirement. Probably better than most end up with, no?
- mrosett 6y ago
  A couple reasons I don't think that's the correct comparison: * There's a huge consumption component to college * Nobody's lending you 150k to invest in the stock market when you're 18. (Not sure we should be lending it to them for college, of course.)
  - schwartzworld 6y ago
    You're missing the point. The argument that your money would get you farther if you invest it over 40 years is inherently flawed because most people who don't go to college don't do that. Your earning power is higher with a college degree. I never finished mine, and it took me a long time and a lot more work to catch up to my peers financially. I might never have done it if I didn't get lucky and make a few right choices in my 30a.
- mikekchar 6y ago
  Kind of apples to oranges. Take the difference in salary between a college graduate and a high school graduate over those 40 years. Factor in inflation. Invest that at a 7% return. I'm sure it will easily dwarf $2.25M. Why don't people have millions invested by the time they retire? Because no matter how much money people make (up to a certain point, depending on the person), they spend it. If you give the average high school graduate $150K and tell them to invest it for 40 years, I pretty much guarantee that it will be gone long before the 40 years are up. To be fair, I don't have millions invested and I'm scarily close to retirement. So I'm not trying to be critical of others ;-)
  - 6y ago
dang 6y ago
A related thread from earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23349713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23349713
Merrill 6y ago
The spread of Covid-19 appears to be heavily dependent on individuals who are "super-spreaders" and on "super-spreading events". For example, the guy who was involved in horse-racing at Yonkers, the choir practice in Washington, the conference at Boston. So a simple model where each case results in R new infections doesn't capture this at all. Instead, networks of infection appear to be like other social networks where some nodes are much more highly connected than other nodes. The task that colleges face is to ensure that students with large social networks don't infect their contacts and to ensure that large events conducive to infection don't happen. Otherwise, no amount of wiping doorknobs and fogging classrooms with disinfectant will be effective.
- hinoki 6y ago
  Relevant exploration of these ideas: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/social https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/social
kenneth 6y ago
I get why this is bad for universities. For students though, the solution seems simple: take a gap year if you're just about to start, or a semester off if you're already in school. Gap years are tremendously valuable life experiences that for some reason Americans don't like, but that is really popular among Europeans. The value of university is primarily in the social bonds it forms and life experiences it provides (and the piece of paper you get at the end, for some). The education part itself is rarely applicable to real life anyways. What's the point of overpaying to slave over online classes and a compromised experience? Just wait it out…
- Closi 6y ago
  The only problem about taking a gap year though is that it’s not clear what that will he like either this year... Travel restrictions are probably still going to be around for some time, and the likelihood of getting a part time job to fund it is much lower than usual.
- ausbah 6y ago
  and do what for 4-6 months? get a job in a labor market that has suddenly gone belly up? travel abroad to places that won't take you?
  - dsabanin 6y ago
    Play video games, watch Netflix, intermixed with PornHub, become obese, depressed, and addicted to some substance, even if purely out of boredom. Then, after all this, forget why you even wanted to go to college. Sounds like a plan.
  - xboxnolifes 6y ago
    Even "doing nothing" is cheaper for the time being if you can't get a job.
  - downerending 6y ago
    Where I'm at, there are lots of listings. Many places need more people to deal with curb-delivery, etc., and contact-tracing is taking off. More importantly, though, you can simply live cheap in parents' basement or whatever, and study, study, study. You don't need a college to learn.
sys_64738 6y ago
People who take courses which are online will be entering the workforce with a devalued degree. Employers already frown when presented with online courses but now the whole period will be like so. This whole period of online education is troubling as kids educated during this period will be disadvantaged academically and socially.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  If everyone in a 2 year period is disadvantaged in the same way, that disadvantage becomes the new normal.
  - sys_64738 6y ago
    Only for those directly exposed to it. Others not so much.
- angarg12 6y ago
  It's worse than that. I believe that in many cases the social connections developed in college are one of the most important collateral of education, sometimes rivalling degrees themselves. A fully online education don't enable networking at the same level. People from privileged backgrounds might not notice much of a difference (they can socialise in other ways) but students that could really benefit from strong social connections will suffer the most.
- ralphc 6y ago
  Will it still be that way though? B.C. (Before Covid) the thinking was you took online courses because you "couldn't get into a real college", but for a few years at least _everyone_ will be having online classes.
  - itsspring 6y ago
    I got a graduate degree online from a well ranked uni because I didn’t want to commute or move.
- itsspring 6y ago
ipython 6y ago
I’ve been waiting patiently for the other shoe to drop on college tuition for more than a decade now. I still have another ten years until I’m in the thick of it again myself. Unfortunately history so far has shown that tuition is surprisingly immune to what I would consider severe shocks to the rest of the economy. So I watch in shock as the price continues to skyrocket...
ulucs 6y ago
I am throughly horrified at the difference between the approaches of American and European schools. Most European schools have already moved fall semester online while American schools are scrambling to preserve their tuitions. I mean, just compare their priorities.
- downerending 6y ago
  Many American schools have little choice. If they lose a substantial fraction of their students (especially rich international students) for a year, they may very well have to close, or at least decimate their programs.
  - itsspring 6y ago
    Let it be. Lay off admins, restructure their loans, Stop building new buildings, lower costs, and use their endowments to fund the difference. And get rid of some programs
    - downerending 6y ago
      That'd be okay with me. The reality is, though, that rich donors call the shots. Nothing happens without their say-so.
knbrlo 6y ago
Everyone already knows the answer which is that the most adaptable schools will generate new revenue streams offering more online degrees. It’s stupid to assume that all students are willing to take the risk to show up in person when there isn’t even a vaccine. Most schools are scared about the money they’re going to lose yet they’re forgetting how much they could make if they just decided to be more adaptable and flexible.

129 points by jelliclesfarm 6y ago

“If I’m a leader,” McClure told me, “I better be prepared to have a really good explanation for why it is that I brought people back to campus—understanding the risks—if somebody falls ill and dies.” I feel like that needs to be WHEN not IF. It's not an easy decision and I'm glad I'm not in any position to make it. But certainly, it's when, not if.

Simulacra 6y ago

Could this bring reform to university administration, pay, tenure, and the general bloat that most universities have to carry?

jonahbenton 6y ago
No, because the admin is the "management" and it will squeeze everyone else- students, profs, staff- before itself. Hence eg schools ceasing contributions to faculty retirement plans, and no consequences for management creating a model that is so incredibly revenue sensitive.
- Balgair 6y ago
  "We're in this together" is Latin for "no tuition won't go down, my mortgage won't pay itself".
- ImaCake 6y ago
  > because the admin is the "management" and it will squeeze everyone else I participate in the research side of universities in various ways and this is exactly how it happens. The bureaucracy is absolutely the enemy when trying to get research done or preventing some arsehole in management from removing a useful service. I am currently trying to get hired as a research assistant (basically a vague title covering people who do research as part of a lab but without the ambitions of an academic) and lab heads will routinely try to source talent in a way that avoids the official university hiring policy. They do this because the official way is slow, stupid, and gets administration people involved who just get in the way. Not only that, they deal with plenty of university administration already, and they think it is mostly useless or needlessly complicated.
neel_k 6y ago
Most likely it will do the opposite. Losing a year of revenue will straight up kill a bunch of universities, just like it would kill most businesses. However, the following year there will still be the same number of 18 year olds who want to go to college as usual, and so surviving universities will grow much bigger. Bigger universities will grow bigger administrative arms, which will further isolate the leadership from students and academic and enable even more extractive policies, both because increased social distance makes cruelty more thinkable, and because the loss of competition makes it harder for students and academics to find an alternative. In other words, wiping out a bunch of businesses reduces competition, and less competitive markets are more monopolistic.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  there will still be the same number of 18 year olds who want to go to college as usual That’s by no means certain at all. It’s plausible that many will realise that the degree isn’t as valuable as it once was and pursue a trade instead.
  - nerdponx 6y ago
    Or they pursue similar coursework without all the dressing.
  - nradov 6y ago
    It's not like we have a lot of empty slots in trade schools or apprenticeship programs either.
jldugger 6y ago
Well, considering I tripled my earnings by leaving a university job, I don't think they have much to 'save' on the pay dimension.
downerending 6y ago
If you think about it, tenure isn't really an obvious problem (since it only affects quality, which most don't care that much about). As for pay, at least at public schools, it's not very high. Administrative bloat? Some of it, like the diversity infrastructure, is mandated from without (regulations and/or legal concerns). Some, like vanity recycling programs, will indeed get whacked. In truth, though, the reforms that would really matter are (1) reduce college loan subsidies to a rational level, and (2) increase state funding of public universities.

threatofrain 6y ago

Am I wrong to say that K-8 education faces a similar sort of problem, except that college students likely live with other college students, whereas kids are far more likely to live with family with older folk? Why should colleges be expected to be safer than K-8? Why must they resort to impromptu web solutions? Also, if there's a consensus on risk and response, shouldn't that be coordinated at a central level instead of institutions each making their own calls?

vkou 6y ago
Because K-8 provides childcare, without which a society where all the adults in a household are working quickly starts unraveling. Whereas you can close all colleges for a year, with a much smaller impact.
- jonahbenton 6y ago
  If you close all colleges for a year, without substantial liquidity support that is not going to be forthcoming, many (25%) will never reopen.
  - gowld 6y ago
    There are too many private colleges so that seems fine.
  - vkou 6y ago
    Which will create opportunities for leaner, slimmer, more efficient startup colleges to take their place. I'm not talking about coding boot camps, I'm talking about institutions that are more similar to trade schools... Or European universities. All that you need to educate people is a large hall, an instructor, and a whiteboard.
    - jonahbenton 6y ago
      With respect, while I am sympathetic to the creative destructive dogma of capitalism, I see reality considerably differently. I don't mean to be banal but the business of colleges is not "education". A large hall, an instructor, and a whiteboard is not competitive from the perspective of the customer base, nor is it attractive from the perspective of those who would populate the whiteboard with whatever. What parents and students pay for is essentially a moderately supervised, branded, summer sleepaway camp experience (full year) filled with nice sounding time-occupying activities and vague, often unfulfilled, and also unaccountable promises that at the end of the camp experience someone will be willing to pay to utilize the time of the student, rather than the student/parents paying to have their time occupied. There are various ways to creatively package the elements of that experience into a product, but in the "lean" formulations- like Lambda School- there is no real estate, no large hall. Real estate is expensive. I think what we actually would see- are already seeing- in the closure of the bespoke, idiosyncratic small private colleges likely to die is the chain restaurant version of the bespoke, idiosyncratic small family restaurants that have largely gone by the wayside in American culture. They will have a consistent brand, will cost maybe a little less, will pay their mostly expendable teaching staff considerably less, with no tenure (though performance bonuses and maybe equity grants for the stars, the way any sensibly managed business operates these days), with a manufactured curriculum delivered consistently across the "franchises" and with lots of entertainment and parent-appealing safety/oversight options, lots of addons for extra fees (semester abroad, anyone?), and some structure around the time-occupying activities that may- no guarantees- lead to eventual employment. Welcome to Olive Garden, can I take your classroom order please? Mediocre consistency at scale is how America works. Cheers.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

This week I went to a gym that just recently opened up. While attendance was way down (I'd say ~1/3 of usual) there were still a good amount of people there, and I was the only person, besides staff, wearing a mask. At this point I see another explosion of coronavirus cases as just math. I mean, it's like stamping out most of a fire so you're left with only a few burning embers, so you say "Great, time to reopen, lets dump these giant bags of dry leaves onto these embers." Yes, many (most?) people are still staying home where I live, but for many places that have opened up I see zero change in behavior - there were some viral videos last weekend of packed bars and events. I contrast that with other places (like Germany) that actually appear to have a plan in place of how they will be able to open up safely. AFAICT our plan in the US appears to be "thoughts and prayers".

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
I would say I've almost felt a degree of peer pressure to not stay home after the stay at home order lifts here. Even though I really am not comfortable with the measures everyone has taken here. I agree I think a second wave is imminent.
- throwaway122378 6y ago
  I’d love to hear your argument for doing anything other than opening up back to normal (not the new normal) while the elderly and at risk continue staying at home (in addition to anyone that feels more comfortable staying home).
  - majormajor 6y ago
    How do you propose to go back to "normal" because of your own "(in addition to anyone that feels more comfortable staying home)." It would get worse, there, too, if people did return to normal and cases spiked. Versus cities that are now in "new normal" and still full of people being much more cautious. If cases didn't spike - there are those who believe the flattening of case rates isn't a result of behavioral changes but was some hidden factor - then "the new normal" will continue, but you won't be back to the old one. If cases do spike, "the new normal" will get even less close to the old normal, because more and more people will self-select back into staying home. Otherwise you have to get a way more coherent government plan to get on top of the spread. Like tracking and finding and isolating cases fast. And doing more to protect the people in essential jobs which are conducive for big outbreaks.

esotericn 6y ago

Thinking back to my university experience - if you told me that I was going to be doing it in front of a screen, I'd have taken a gap year. If I'd already paid and you refused to refund me, I'd use that gap year to travel to campus, administrators' homes, the lot, and let everyone know that you've stolen enormous amounts of money from hundreds of thousands. Teenage me has a hell of a lot of energy, health, and time on their hands. It's so ridiculous an idea as to be absurd. Do you want social breakdown? This is how you get mass riots. Reading what's facing the US at the moment (I'm British) I honestly worry about whether there will be some sort of military standoff if the government doesn't step up _now_ and put together a coherent plan for the nation. There are tens of millions unemployed, graduates are entering an economy that's essentially been deleted, and new students are having the knife twisted in them before they've even started. People need _hope_. I'm angry on behalf of you guys.

jonahbenton 6y ago
Not sarcastic or cynical- chaos and violence is in Trump's express interest. He and his cohort- Bannon et al- have been saying it out loud for a long time now. They are just not taken "literally or seriously."
- jonahbenton 6y ago
  Re: downvote- as a factual matter Trump and cohort are saying that chaos and violence are their goals and have been for a long time. Stop being in denial.
  - well_that_sucks 6y ago
    link to evidence please
    - jonahbenton 6y ago
      Start with Josh Green. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/21/16000914/steve-bannon-devils-bargain-josh-green https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/21/16000914/s...

marcoperaza 6y ago

The chance of a college kid dying from coronavirus is exceedingly small. If they aren't sick in some special way (severe diabetes, HIV), then why are we even worried? Isn't this just an easy way to let the virus pass through a huge chunk of the population while they are away from their older, more vulnerable family members?

deleted 6y ago
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riotnrrd 6y ago
You're forgetting about the increased risks to campus workers, administrators, staff, professors, people with compromised immune systems, people who live or near or with the elderly or people with compromised immune systems, and the workers at local businesses just to name a few.
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anoffvu 6y ago
This is an interesting thought. However, the risk of spread to the communities that house said colleges is greatly increased. I got to school in Boston and can only imagine the spread via off campus activities, public transport, and use of community spaces. We could be sparing our parents and endangering a whole other population. But college students could be far enough removed from their communities for this to make sense, don’t know of anything to back that up though.
callalex 6y ago
This is a USA-specific problem, but a lot of students are too poor to have health insurance. Getting covid for these young people would ruin their life permanently at a very young age.
- tjohns 6y ago
  Is this common for universities across the US? The university I went to (USC) required that all students had to either submit proof of insurance or pay additional fees as part of their tuition to join the university's health plan. Not having health insurance was not an option if you wanted to enroll. (This was about 15 years ago, though I just checked and they still have this policy.)

bsder 6y ago

> revenue-generating sports. I always laugh when I see this. If you shut down all sports, all but something like the 5 top sports universities (and I think I'm being generous--if I remember correctly only UT-Austin is demonstrably profitable) would see a net profit--sometimes significantly so since the coaches are often some of the highest paid employees.

abakker 6y ago
Profit is what's left over after salaries. Break-even sports would still be paying plenty of people for their time and giving them jobs to feed their families.
csa 6y ago
I think your comment is directionally correct, but... 1. This article from 2015 (http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/athletics-departments-make-more-they-spend-still-minority http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/athlet...) puts it at 24. That sounds closer to correct to me. 2. There are substantial knock-on effects for university donations during big years that are not counted in the profit or loss of an athletic department. These benefits are spread wide throughout the NCAA. Winning a championship (even league rather than NCAA), beating a rival, or just making the NCAA tourney in basketball can be a boost. 3. Sustained excellence can change the face of a university in ways that money cannot. The best recent example is the change of the student body at Alabama during Saban’s tenure. Just some ideas that go beyond sports revenue dollars.

monk_e_boy 6y ago

The teaching facility that I work, just a few days before the lock down it was business as usual. We all knew that we were supposed to distance, but how? The cafe was chock full of students, the libraries full to bursting. All lectures full. Tiny corridoors, limited parking, 20 busses full of students.... And we ALL knew it was crazy. We can't magic up new buildings, or new classrooms or lecture halls. We lecture 20+ students in rooms that seat .... wait for it .... 20(ish) students. I have no idea how to social distance in there. Half students in? How do I teach half a class, then the other half? Do they magic up a second Monday for me to teach in? And half students, they are still less than 2m apart. Outside? Teaching IT and coding? Huh? Exams? Busses? The car park? Older / elderly lecturers - especially those in management. What do with they then? A fair few of our students are nurses so they know the risks and are happy to inform everyone. I think we'll open and just hope for the best. Some people are going to get sick and there's not much we can do to avoid it. Unless we stop education for a year.

brentis 6y ago

Schools are screwed, this is just the perfect storm. Go spend $35yr on a middling state school or top 10 online program for $20k. Pretty sure the cachet of top 10 schools will make it an easy decision. They have tons of brand potential to unleash.

courtf 6y ago
Yep. Thousands of schools are going to close down in the next decade unless they get a bailout. The elite schools will be just fine, this will all happen at 2nd and 3rd rate schools. No one is paying those prices for a severely reduced experience unless the brand is incredibly strong.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- itsspring 6y ago
  Most students I’ve met have no idea how their loans work or what APR is, so I’m sure they’ll keep paying. It’s sad but true

ryeguy_24 6y ago

Maybe this is a perfect opportunity to cut costs and make college more affordable in the process. Higher education is getting quite expensive and I believe these costs should be rationalized. If you take the average cost of some higher end schools (say 150k) and look at the opportunity cost of investing that in the stock market for 40 years. That’s about 15x return (7% for 40 years). Thats $2.25M at retirement. Probably better than most end up with, no?

mrosett 6y ago
A couple reasons I don't think that's the correct comparison: * There's a huge consumption component to college * Nobody's lending you 150k to invest in the stock market when you're 18. (Not sure we should be lending it to them for college, of course.)
- schwartzworld 6y ago
  You're missing the point. The argument that your money would get you farther if you invest it over 40 years is inherently flawed because most people who don't go to college don't do that. Your earning power is higher with a college degree. I never finished mine, and it took me a long time and a lot more work to catch up to my peers financially. I might never have done it if I didn't get lucky and make a few right choices in my 30a.
mikekchar 6y ago
Kind of apples to oranges. Take the difference in salary between a college graduate and a high school graduate over those 40 years. Factor in inflation. Invest that at a 7% return. I'm sure it will easily dwarf $2.25M. Why don't people have millions invested by the time they retire? Because no matter how much money people make (up to a certain point, depending on the person), they spend it. If you give the average high school graduate $150K and tell them to invest it for 40 years, I pretty much guarantee that it will be gone long before the 40 years are up. To be fair, I don't have millions invested and I'm scarily close to retirement. So I'm not trying to be critical of others ;-)
- 6y ago

dang 6y ago

A related thread from earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23349713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23349713

Merrill 6y ago

The spread of Covid-19 appears to be heavily dependent on individuals who are "super-spreaders" and on "super-spreading events". For example, the guy who was involved in horse-racing at Yonkers, the choir practice in Washington, the conference at Boston. So a simple model where each case results in R new infections doesn't capture this at all. Instead, networks of infection appear to be like other social networks where some nodes are much more highly connected than other nodes. The task that colleges face is to ensure that students with large social networks don't infect their contacts and to ensure that large events conducive to infection don't happen. Otherwise, no amount of wiping doorknobs and fogging classrooms with disinfectant will be effective.

hinoki 6y ago
Relevant exploration of these ideas: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/social https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/social

kenneth 6y ago

I get why this is bad for universities. For students though, the solution seems simple: take a gap year if you're just about to start, or a semester off if you're already in school. Gap years are tremendously valuable life experiences that for some reason Americans don't like, but that is really popular among Europeans. The value of university is primarily in the social bonds it forms and life experiences it provides (and the piece of paper you get at the end, for some). The education part itself is rarely applicable to real life anyways. What's the point of overpaying to slave over online classes and a compromised experience? Just wait it out…

Closi 6y ago
The only problem about taking a gap year though is that it’s not clear what that will he like either this year... Travel restrictions are probably still going to be around for some time, and the likelihood of getting a part time job to fund it is much lower than usual.
ausbah 6y ago
and do what for 4-6 months? get a job in a labor market that has suddenly gone belly up? travel abroad to places that won't take you?
- dsabanin 6y ago
  Play video games, watch Netflix, intermixed with PornHub, become obese, depressed, and addicted to some substance, even if purely out of boredom. Then, after all this, forget why you even wanted to go to college. Sounds like a plan.
- xboxnolifes 6y ago
  Even "doing nothing" is cheaper for the time being if you can't get a job.
- downerending 6y ago
  Where I'm at, there are lots of listings. Many places need more people to deal with curb-delivery, etc., and contact-tracing is taking off. More importantly, though, you can simply live cheap in parents' basement or whatever, and study, study, study. You don't need a college to learn.

sys_64738 6y ago

People who take courses which are online will be entering the workforce with a devalued degree. Employers already frown when presented with online courses but now the whole period will be like so. This whole period of online education is troubling as kids educated during this period will be disadvantaged academically and socially.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago
If everyone in a 2 year period is disadvantaged in the same way, that disadvantage becomes the new normal.
- sys_64738 6y ago
  Only for those directly exposed to it. Others not so much.
angarg12 6y ago
It's worse than that. I believe that in many cases the social connections developed in college are one of the most important collateral of education, sometimes rivalling degrees themselves. A fully online education don't enable networking at the same level. People from privileged backgrounds might not notice much of a difference (they can socialise in other ways) but students that could really benefit from strong social connections will suffer the most.
ralphc 6y ago
Will it still be that way though? B.C. (Before Covid) the thinking was you took online courses because you "couldn't get into a real college", but for a few years at least _everyone_ will be having online classes.
- itsspring 6y ago
  I got a graduate degree online from a well ranked uni because I didn’t want to commute or move.
itsspring 6y ago

ipython 6y ago

I’ve been waiting patiently for the other shoe to drop on college tuition for more than a decade now. I still have another ten years until I’m in the thick of it again myself. Unfortunately history so far has shown that tuition is surprisingly immune to what I would consider severe shocks to the rest of the economy. So I watch in shock as the price continues to skyrocket...

ulucs 6y ago

I am throughly horrified at the difference between the approaches of American and European schools. Most European schools have already moved fall semester online while American schools are scrambling to preserve their tuitions. I mean, just compare their priorities.

downerending 6y ago
Many American schools have little choice. If they lose a substantial fraction of their students (especially rich international students) for a year, they may very well have to close, or at least decimate their programs.
- itsspring 6y ago
  Let it be. Lay off admins, restructure their loans, Stop building new buildings, lower costs, and use their endowments to fund the difference. And get rid of some programs
  - downerending 6y ago
    That'd be okay with me. The reality is, though, that rich donors call the shots. Nothing happens without their say-so.

knbrlo 6y ago

Everyone already knows the answer which is that the most adaptable schools will generate new revenue streams offering more online degrees. It’s stupid to assume that all students are willing to take the risk to show up in person when there isn’t even a vaccine. Most schools are scared about the money they’re going to lose yet they’re forgetting how much they could make if they just decided to be more adaptable and flexible.