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Why are any colleges considering postponing their start date until January 2021?

Brian Leiter

This idea has cropped up in various places, but I can't understand the rationale:  barring some medical miracle, we will be back in lockdown by January 2021 as another wave of COVID comes crashing across the population.  Even the CDC has noted that the combination of COVID and flu next winter will make for a worse situation than we have now.  The best hope for colleges is to try to get as much of a term in as possible before flu season starts in the later fall, especially since many (but not all) states will likely see sharp declines in infection and disease by August.

Does anyone have an idea what lies behind the January 2021 starting date talk?  I'm perplexed.

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8 responses to “Why are any colleges considering postponing their start date until January 2021?”

  1. Jonathan

    Presumably the hope for a vaccine combined with herd immunity combined with hoping for the best. I think this idea has lost traction to the scenario you described. Having said that, I also don't think we can predict what the situation will be next January. There are just too many unknowns, including the willingness of the population to be locked down again in the same way for the same period. We'll see.

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  2. Carl

    In the UK there’s the additional case that moving to a January start date would eradicate the inequitable and cumbersome admission procedure based substantially on predicted rather than achieved grades. A university academic year running alongside the calendar year gives time to make admissions decisions on the basis of final summer exams, instead of unreliable predicted grades from teachers. Ordinarily the disruption caused by such a move would be unconscionable but the pandemic provides, grimly, far more palatable circumstances.

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  3. Kenny Easwaran

    I assume that these institutions are working on the idea that the situation in August is unlikely to be good, while the situation in January is less certain. It's at least conceivable that herd immunity, or a fast-acting antiviral, could be available before January, while neither of those is very likely before August. And it seems very implausible that it will take six months for the next wave to hit if states start opening up in the next couple weeks.

    Of course, delaying until January doesn't mean they expect for sure to be able to start in January – just that they think it's less unlikely than being able to start in August.

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  4. David

    Probably just simplistic "single curve" thinking…"well, we might not get through this in time for Fall 2020, but I'll bet we'll be good to go by Spring 2021".

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  5. Burt C Hopkins

    For sure, “opening up campuses”—whether this coming Fall or Winter, is moot—before there’s a vaccine and testing program to establish the regional and generational distribution of the virus, together with an effective anti-body test to determine who may have some immunity to it, is based on a fundamental supposition: students (and their parents) will be willing to pay full boat tuition for life on a campus where parties, sex at ranges closer than 6 feet, groups larger than 2 are not permitted, etc., and will do so knowing that these prohibitions will be strictly enforced.

    I have reason to believe that this supposition would not withstand the critical scrutiny it deserves but is clearly not receiving, based on the CHE list of institutions talking about opening campuses this coming Fall.

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  6. David Wallace

    … except that (as I understand it) the final summer exams are themselves all cancelled because of COVID-19. Instead, students' achieved grades are going to be worked out by their schools on the basis of mock exams and non-exam performance – i.e., the same things they use to work out the predicted grades in any case.

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  7. Brian Leiter

    I think you misunderstand part of the theory on which campuses will reopen: it isn't that students won't get sick, it is that the illness is less serious in that age group. So while there will have to be a ban on frat parties and big gatherings (superspreader events, as it were), a lot of campus life will carry on for the students as before. The harder part will be protecting those more susceptible to serious illness from the young people on campus.

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  8. Don Savage

    Some countries do consider the staggering of cohorts returning to campus. Not sure if it makes sense though.
    It will be sweet if the opening can be postponed.

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