With COVID-19 cases surging just as students are about to return from winter break, dozens of U.S. colleges are moving classes online again for at least the first week or so of the semester – and some warn it could stretch longer if the wave of infection doesn’t subside soon.
Harvard is moving classes online for the first three weeks of the year, with a return to campus scheduled for late January, “conditions permitting.” The University of Chicago is delaying the beginning of its term and holding the first two weeks online. Other schools are inviting students back to campus but starting classes online, including Michigan State University.
Many colleges hope that an extra week or two will get them past the peak of the nationwide spike driven by the highly contagious omicron variant.
For some students, starting the term remotely is becoming routine.
Jake Maynard, 20, a junior at George Washington University in the nation’s capital, said he is fine with a week of online classes, but beyond that, he hopes officials trust in the booster shots and provide a traditional college experience.
The university is inviting students back to campus starting Monday, but classes will be held online until Jan. 18 as officials ramp up virus testing and isolate any infected students.
The university was among many that saw infections soar before winter break. The campus averaged more than 80 cases a day during finals week, compared with just a few a day for much of the fall.
So far, more than 70 colleges across 26 states are starting the term online.
Many of those shifting online are in recent virus hot spots, including George Washington, Yale and Columbia on the East Coast, along with Wayne State University in Detroit and Northwestern University near Chicago. The list also includes most of the University of California campuses and Rice University in Houston.
At the University of California, Riverside, students can return on Monday but face two weeks of online classes. They are also being being asked to sequester for five days while they undergo two rounds of virus testing.
Some other colleges are delaying the new term without offering remote classes. Others are pressing ahead with in-person learning, saying the health risks are low with masks and booster shots.
The University of Florida plans to return to in-person learning at the start of the semester, despite a request from a faculty union to teach remotely for the first three weeks.
The 50,000-student campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign plans to resume in-person classes after one week of online instruction. Students are being encouraged to return during that first week so they can take two virus tests, which will clear them to resume in-person activities if they test negative.