Friday, May 1, 2020

The Problem with Re-Opening the Universities

Is that students are prone to risky behavior of this sort:
A single “Beer Pong” party where participants shared drink glasses at an Austrian ski resort is credited with producing hundreds of infections in Denmark, Germany, and Norway (Hruby, 2020).

4 comments:

JustPeachy said...

By all means, shut them down for a year. But don't bail them out, after.

G. Verloren said...

@JustPeachy

Don't bail out who?

The students, who largely can't work and have massive student loans to pay, which there are no plans to cancel, forgive, extend, furlough, et cetera?

Or the universities, who will simply pass the cost on to the students and hike up tuitions / books / housing / meal plans / everything else to make up their shortfall?

Refusing bailouts only works in conjuction with protecting "The Little Guy". If we choose to leave universities to fend for themselves, we need to also prevent them from squeezing students to make up the difference. Otherwise, they still get bailed out in the end - just unofficially, and at the expense of others.

G. Verloren said...

Correction - student loans have been suspended. Not sure how I missed that, maybe I've been conflating it with the lack of rent and tax forgiveness.

Anonymous said...

Just be clear of what kind of death you can get with the virus, even if your parents are filthy rich norwegians...