An Urgent Time for a Year Off Campus
American higher education has coped with major international emergencies before. During World War II, students left in droves to enlist—and then returned, after the war, eager to resume their formal schooling. (In 1947, nearly half of all admitted college students were veterans.) The United States is now suffering through another crisis of enormous magnitude. Congress has already passed $2 trillion in relief and is considering more. And yet colleges and universities from coast to coast appear bent on muddling through—that is, either by reopening their campus despite the dangers or by patching together enough online offerings to put on a facsimile of a fall semester.
This is a dismal choice. What colleges and the federal government should acknowledge is that, for many students, neither option makes sense. Given the nature and scale of the crisis facing the country, college students should be strongly urged to take a
