The further into the winter we get the stranger that "keep universities open" sounds. They are not, meaningfully, open now. Collectively there's a cigarette paper between what's happening now and a default online position.

When government says "we will keep universities open" in the same breath as schools something very interesting is going on. The closure of schools, spring lockdown style would be pretty devastating educationally and v difficult to "move online".

But not so with universities. For hundreds of thousands of students they're effectively online now - in fact it would be a disgrace if any teaching that you CAN do online isn't accessible online because of the high probability of self-isolation that comes with high density living

So why - when Germany, France, Belgium etc etc are all moving default online - are we oddly insisting on "keep universities open" when they're effectively already closed?

This in other words isn't really a debate about keeping universities "open" or not (and that's notwithstanding that they never closed). It's REALLY about WHERE we want about 1.5m young people to be, and if it's somewhere else how we achieve that.

It's got pretty much nothing to do with education per se. It's about transport, mental health, physical health, housing and so on. Aspects of it will relate to rent and consumer law. But ultimately, even if you're brave enough to dismiss the conspiracy-ish stuff about money...

... we appear to have decided to trap young people in tiny, isolating rooms for the next month not because anyone can justify doing so pedagogically, but because we can't for the life of us fathom how we might get them home.

All while letting students get the blame for wave 2 and without sticking in a penny to help students to live, make up for lost employment, cope with higher bills or address the costs of self isolation.

It leaves the overall impression that as a society we really do hate students.

Anyway. As such my plea would be for exhausted well meaning folks to avoid getting upset when government says it will keep universities "open". It's obvious they don't mean "operating" or not.