The Nightmare That Colleges Face This Fall

Classes will take place in the fall—but how? There’s still no consensus on what next semester will be like. Not even close.

This spring’s university closures have bought school leaders time to figure out how to introduce social distance into spaces designed to bring people together—classrooms, dining facilities, study lounges, and campus housing, to name a few. And although pivoting to online learning has likely helped slow the spread of the coronavirus in college towns, a meaningful solution to the crisis appears far off. Colleges cannot keep students away forever; their bottom lines can’t handle that financial pressure. Residence halls are scheduled to reopen for the fall semester three months from now. Nearly everyone with an eye on higher education is asking one question: How can schools pull this off?

Eleven weeks ago, Jonathan Alger, the president of James Madison University, in Virginia, thought that all of this might be temporary. On March 11, JMU officials extended spring break and suspended most in-person classes until April 5. They updated