College policies on COVID-19 -- whether students should study on campus or in distance modes, when they should go home for vacation, and how they are regulated while present on campus -- have a potentially immense impact on host communities. As a New York Times study recently revealed, “since the end of August, deaths from the coronavirus have doubled in counties with a large college population, compared with a 58 percent increase in the rest of the nation. Few of the victims were college students, but rather older people and others living and working in the community.”
