. @BrownUniversity
now says it will stagger students arrival. The goal is to bring most returning undergrads to campus by late September. Brown President Christina Paxson has been a big advocate for campuses reopening: https://www.wgbh.org/news/education/2020/06/09/they-have-lives-in-their-hands-colleges-consider-human-costs-financial-benefits-of-reopening #highered @wgbhnews

Since April, Paxson has been arguing colleges must reopen in the fall or #highered will crumble, and dozens — if not hundreds — of colleges will go under. Of course, a lot has changed.

Whatever the cost, Paxson told a virtual U.S. Senate committee in June, it’s worth it, because so many students say they’d delay getting their degrees if they couldn’t return to campus. “That would be bad for them and bad for the country,” she said. #highered @wgbhnews

Paxson was on point. A survey by @SimpScar out this week finds 40 percent of first-year college students say they plan to stay home this fall over concerns about coronavirus. #highered @wgbhnews

Of the 1,800 students contacted for the study, four in ten are likely or highly likely not to attend any college this fall. The trend includes highly-selective colleges like @Harvard, which announced last week that 20 percent of freshmen deferred enrollment.

@SimpScar CEO Jason Simon tells @wgbhnews: “It’s just a really, really highly volatile time for enrollment. There’s still a lot of students who are rethinking what their plans are and are waiting until the last minute to make any of those decisions.” #highered

That might be because the survey also found that a vast majority of students don’t trust other students to follow public health guidelines.

However you slice it, it’s going to be a tough few months for American colleges - and the cities and towns they support. #highered

"All of the costs are in people and so it’s going to affect these local economies in different ways when there are layoffs," says @SimpScar's Jason Simon. "That’s the really unfortunate thing in addition to the learning outcomes for the students.”

Here in Massachusetts, @holy_cross in Worcester is the latest college to announce all classes will be remote this fall and that only a handful of students will live on the Mount St. James campus. #highered

I’m told very few @holy_cross professors planned to teach entirely in person. A majority had opted for remote or hybrid.