The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many colleges, professors, staff, and college students to face major decisions regarding what they wanted to do this fall. Questions of campus safety, online classes, parties, and campus life have forced many people, myself included, to question if the cost of college is worth the benefit in the age of coronavirus.
The most essential aspect of the college experience is the classroom. Schools have varied on their approach to in-person, online, and hybrid learning. Many schools, such as the California State system and all of the Ivy League’s except for Cornell and Brown, have an all-online system that has taken any of the choices that students whose schools are offering hybrid learning may face.
For students who faced, or are facing, a choice over whether to return to their campus in the fall or even potentially the spring, there are many factors to evaluate. High-risk students with diabetes, asthma, or any other preexisting condition can put one at risk to get severely sick, or even on a ventilator far away from home. The question of trusting other students to be safe, socially distant, and respectful of other students who may be high risk has also risen. Reports of off-campus parties causing outbreaks on many college campuses have led many to believe that college students generally cannot be trusted when dealing with COVID on campus when they have been deprived of such social contact for a long time.
The second most common factor in the decision to return or not to return is cost. The cost to benefit analysis of paying full tuition, and room and board costs while taking the majority of classes online, which could be done from home and save tens of thousands of dollars, varies from person to person. The opportunity to return to campus is no doubt tempting, but in a time of uncertainty that has no doubt affected many students and their families financially, it is hard to overestimate how valuable learning from home may be for many students.
The decision over what to do with one’s college education in the time of COVID is highly personal and has many factors. The lure of college life juxtaposed with the reality of a quiet, online, socially distant semester can put stresses on any student, and many students feel that no matter what they choose, this is undoubtedly an incredibly challenging time to be in college. No matter what you are doing for this semester, remember that it is the right thing for you, and to stay safe in these truly unprecedented times.