If there is absolutely no f2f as many are reporting it does seem a bit of an unnecessary luxury/white elephant
I did speak about money in my first post- to agree with you! From the parents perspective, this is money down the drain in some senses. Unfortunately the universities approached the gov't for a bailout so they weren't so dependent on fees, and the gov't said no. The government (and previous governments) have created universities as a business sector, not as a public service, and what we have had to do to survive is to keep the students coming. Otherwise, we really are facing mass redundancies, and the collapse of some unis . That then has an impact on local economies as well as meaning less places for the next round of uni students, which next years' parents won't be too happy about. There is not a solution to this from the current position, as the unis need students to come! So actually do local businesses, but you wouldn't know that from the moaning of local people.
If I had a child at a local lockdown uni and they were deeply unhappy, I would try to get them out of halls/paying next term and bring them home. But many unis ARE still offering face to face, which is a giant experiment, frankly, and may not pay off reputationally if we have a big outbreak (see Glasgow). Plus many young people feel more purposive and more engaged being at uni, even with more limited contact time.
Finally, and I've said this so many times on the board I'm boring myself, parents always vastly over-estimate the amount of contact time their child really takes up. Parents are always telling me they want more contact time, students report they want more contact time, but when more actual contact time is offered, they don't take it! Many prefer to watch lectures online, get up late, don't read the readings, fail to take advantage of office hours. I don't mean a few- I mean about 50% of my class is like this by the end of term, and I have excellent ratings as being a really engaging teacher. People assume their own young person is highly engaged and attending everything- some are, but most are not. My office hours, where I'm prepared to work with anyone on essay plans, give advice, sympathetic ear, anything, are a dead zone til about week 6 when fear of deadlines kicks in. So, if your child has four hours a week contact time in humanities or social science and turns up for all of them, plus has the opportunity to speak online directly with staff, plus has tailored video lectures, then actually, that's pretty good going on our behalf.
University is not the free-for all highly covid risky school environment, thank goodness. My uni provides protective masks, hand sanitiser in every room, marshals to direct students, private testing (so results back immediately). Not all are doing that and perhaps those that are doing a great job should be rewarded by more students next year, if the market operates as the gov't thinks it does.