Colleges confident, but careful, about on-campus housing

The availability of vaccines and implementation of COVID-19 safety measures are helping college students get back to campus after a year of mostly online learning. On-campus housing options that remained largely empty during the pandemic are filling with students eager to resume their coursework.

Colleges across the country have begun making announcements that they will be returning to primarily in-person instruction and making available on-campus housing this fall, but provisionally.

Texas A&M University announced a return to a near-normal semester and student housing for fall, but only after having implemented many safety measures and guidelines to get through the pandemic, particularly for oncampus students.

Kelly Brown, associate vice president of marketing and communications, said the school saw a 10% drop in on-campus student housing in fall 2020 and an 8% drop in spring 2021. During both semesters, which saw students in a hybrid learning model during the pandemic, many safety measures were put in place to keep student housing safe.

“Move-in was by appointment only over 11 days to modulate the traffic into the halls, as well as visitors. Contactless check-in was done in each building with a QR code used to avoid lines or gathering in small residence hall spaces to pick up keys or paperwork. IDs were distributed to those who had participated in advance at check-in to eliminate one additional step in another building. IDs also are exterior access cards for residents,” Brown said.

This fall, Texas A&M currently has 10,595 students assigned to live in the residence halls and on-campus apartments, meaning the college’s residency — like many others — is now at capacity.

Many safety processes are being continued or established to make sure the surge of students who will be residing on-campus remain safe and COVID-19 case numbers stay down.

“Most institutions are still being careful to indicate that a return to in-person instruction and on-campus activities will depend on several factors … and constant monitoring of local conditions so that a pivot back to virtual or hybrid instruction and limited campus activities could be implemented quickly should they be necessary,” wrote Michael T. Nietzel, president emeritus of Missouri State University.

In addition to this, a number of colleges are offering free access to COVID-19 testing and vaccination, health kits and quarantine concierge services.

“Free COVID testing began in the spring of last year at various locations across campus. That will continue until health experts feel its no longer necessary,” said Brown. “Our concierge services for those in isolation or quarantine identify on-campus housing for students who need to be in isolation or quarantine….”