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Education Dive
Travel advisories add another hurdle to reopening campuses
Colleges in states with quarantine orders or recommendations are asking
students to self-isolate, but doing so comes with trade-offs.
Natalie Schwartz
July 23, 2020
As colleges prepare for the fall, some are dealing with yet another
barrier to bringing students back to campus. Around one-third of U.S.
states have quarantine orders or recommendations affecting certain
groups of people entering their borders, according to one count.
While several states merely recommend that certain out-of-state
visitors quarantine upon arrival, others are mandating they do so and
have penalties for noncompliance. And such orders could affect
colleges, which may need to give students time and space to quarantine
or test them for the coronavirus.
New York, which was besieged by the virus early in the pandemic, is
ordering people coming from 31 other states as of Thursday to
quarantine for 14 days upon their arrival. People flying in from
designated states must fill out a health form or risk a $2,000 fine.
In response, Ithaca College told out-of-state students impacted by the
advisory to study remotely until their respective states are removed
from the list. Officials said they don't have the resources to
quarantine a large number of students, the Ithaca Journal reported.
Meanwhile, nearby Cornell University is preparing to welcome back its
out-of-state students, though it doesn't yet know how many will be
impacted by the advisory, a spokesperson for the college wrote in an
email.
Cornell is asking residential students to arrive in New York by August
17, more than two weeks before classes resume. The university will
provide students planning to live on campus with a quarantine location
and meals, the spokesperson said, adding that the situation is "fluid"
and that the school will "communicate changes broadly as we become
aware of them."
Off-campus students, on the other hand, are being asked to quarantine
at their residence and schedule a coronavirus test before they arrive
on campus. Cornell is partnering with a local healthcare provider to
administer tests this fall.
"Even though states are putting the 14-day quarantines up, there are
big questions about how it'd be enforced on a campus and for students
who live off campus."
Well-heeled colleges, such as Cornell, will likely have more space and
resources to accommodate students impacted by travel restrictions, said
Brendan Cantwell, an education professor at Michigan State University.
But it also comes down to the trade-offs a college is willing to make,
he added. "If you decide to provide quarantine space for students, then
what you're saying is that space is not available for something else,"
such as housing, he said.
Pennsylvania has a similar travel advisory, which asks out-of-state
visitors from states with high levels of coronavirus cases to
quarantine for two weeks upon arriving.
The University of Pittsburgh is asking residential students to
quarantine for seven days before moving into campus housing, where
they'll be expected to isolate for another week. Meanwhile, the public
university is urging off-campus students to shelter in place for two
weeks before coming onto campus.
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