If your dc is home from university do you envisage they will go back in September?

[EricaNernie]

what about the second wave?
worrying times.

[ThroughThickAndThin01]

My ds3 will go back in July to move house. We are assuming a September/October start, and if another lockdown he’ll stay in uni town.

It’s ds1 I’m more worried about, doing finals now and finding a career job in these conditions. Virtually impossible right now.

[GnomeDePlume]

I am fairly sure that they will. I have DD & her DFiance here with us now. They had already lost so much teaching from their second year with strike action then this.

[okiedokieme]

Yes, the universities will go bust if they can't intake new students in fact

[Dilbertian]

Ds is determined to do so. He had already signed next year's rental contract when all this blew up. I don't like it. I dread the thought of my baby being ill without me being there to look after him. But my baby is an adult, not a baby.

[Silversun83]

I work in HE and the latest being talked about was a delay to the start of the academic year or to carry on in virtual mode.

[paxillin]

I'm an academic, my own university has not made a final decision yet. We are currently entirely online of course.

I know of one college not planning on a September intake for some subjects, one which will offer a choice of classroom and online and a couple who currently plan to teach online until January.

[EricaNernie]

dd came home because all her halls fled, in september she is due to go into a house share, which might be better. it all depends.

[EricaNernie]

actually part of her uni is due to be allocated, or has been allocated, to NHS

[googlepoodle]

I really hope they can

[Babyroobs]

I hope my ds will be going back in september, he will be in his third year and has practical course work that needs to be completed in relation to Sport of which very little is taking place currently so goodness knows what will happen.

[Madhairday]

I hope so. DD is supposed to be going into a house share. She still has a load of her stuff back in halls. She really wants to be back there, her degree is very practical hands on so online doesn't cut it. And she's supposed to have a 10 week placement in the summer at a veterinary practice and has no idea if that's going ahead. It's all so horrible for them :( but yes, assuming September.

[LOLeater]

Dd1 is due to have year abroad 😕 but who knows.

Dd 2 due to start Uni but who would want online learning in year 1 and no “gatherings”?

Could be they both defer. Just don’t know.

[ByGaslight]

I work in HE, and have contact with several other HEIs than mine and am involved in planning for next academic year. No-one is anticipating that students will be able to attend university campuses in September as normal. The risks would be high: hundreds of students coming together from all parts of this and many other countries in close proximity. This is already a known infectious disease risk in normal years.

We are expecting to push back any September starts, inductions etc. to October. We don't anticipate any (non-virtual) social or commercial events at the start of term. We expect courses which can to run online. ALL courses will need to have social distancing protocols, so a limited number of students (e.g. first years, or students on courses which need to be physically on campus) may be taught in socially-distanced spaces in smaller groups.

Course resources are being put online in virtual libraries. Halls of residence and other campus facilities will be partly open, but again only where social distancing is possible.

Most students we expect to begin next academic year online. Some courses will not be able to begin until January.

[sickofPPEtalk]

@ByGaslight are you anticipating less students wanting to come / deferring etc so they can have a proper university experience at a later year?

[ByGaslight]

No, partly because of the subject area I'm part of (small separate part of the HEI, lots of specialist courses) but I don't know whether that would be different in institutions where there are lots of huge undergraduate courses, especially where students pay fees (I'm Scotland).

All the students I'm in touch with want to come back, even where learning is online at first. Online learning facilities are pretty good these days. They want to live in non-parental accommodation (and they may get digs more cheaply than usual) and they just want to crack on with it - one online term won't be enough to make a difference to them, many will be fed up of not doing anything, and it wouldn't be like taking some sort of gap year - restrictions will be everywhere. Also there is no guarantee that everything will be entirely back to how it was before in 2021.

If I was doing a course, I would definitely be going back or joining it, because the alternative could be a year out under restrictive conditions.