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<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nFirstly, students were promised a clear path back to the university campus\u2014that included aggressive testing, aggressive social distancing measures, and mask mandates. The reality, however, seems to massively different than the expectation. \u201cThe first six weeks of the semester has taught colleges an important lesson: \u2018It\u2019s not simply testing\u2014it\u2019s testing, testing, testing,\u2019 says\u00a0Terry Hartle of the American Council<\/a>\u00a0on Education, a national group of college presidents, \u2018but it\u2019s an expensive undertaking.\u2019\u201d And the expensiveness of the tests\u2014of more than $100 per test\u2014is showing how difficult it is for universities to do the rapid testing that is required to keep faculty and students safe. \u201cOf colleges with in-person classes and more than\u00a05,000 undergraduates<\/a>, only 25% are conducting mass screening or random \u2018surveillance\u2019 testing of students. Only 6% are routinely testing all of their students. Most, instead are relying on only diagnostic testing of symptomatic students, which many experts say comes too late to control outbreaks and understates the true number of cases.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n All this has contributed to universities becoming hotspots and contributing to the large increase in coronavirus cases across the country\u2014up to a 55% nationally increase among adults by August and early September, when colleges opened for the Fall semester. In-person classes have contributed to about a 3,000 increase in cases a day in the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n But testing is not the only issue at hand when it comes to the university desperately trying to maintain a safe environment for workers and students. It didn\u2019t have to be that students were made to come back to campus to do in-person classes, or hybrid classes, or even a cacophony of one class online, one class in person, one hybrid, that would make it mandatory to be on campus to begin with.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n All classes should have been online.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Unfortunately, that would require universities to do something that no university, structured by a corporatist model, would have to do\u2014cut tuition. And I don\u2019t mean a paltry cut to tuition, that would mean administration acknowledging that the model currently makes it impossible to maintain the level of safety and health for their students than they originally thought. That means university presidents taking substantiated salary cuts and other higher administration cutting their salaries as well, so that the faculty are kept safe from lay-offs and austerity measures and tuition reimbursements can be issued.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The consequences cannot be overstated: universities are closing doors for two weeks to stop the spread of COVID, leaving students in the dark about their futures on campus. Others are staying\u00a0closed and refusing to offer tuition<\/a>\u00a0refunds to students should they have to leave. Students already had to\u00a0sue for refunds<\/a>\u00a0after universities refused refunds in the Spring semester, after closing and leaving students in out on their own.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Yet others, at the complete detriment to the student body, are trying to open once again. \u201cJust days after classes resumed,\u00a0Wisconsin<\/a>\u00a0recorded its highest number of coronavirus hospitalizations yet. This left many puzzled by the return to in-person instruction when the situation in the area was only worsening. Moreover, continued the decision to stay open conflicts with the county leadership\u2019s request for the university to move online. The university\u2019s choice demonstrates behavior that contradicts both public health and politics, with a heavy focus on its consumers, the students.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n