In early February, as the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak in China was becoming clear, Sarah Bolton, president of the College of Wooster, invited all of the Chinese students on the campus to her home. Two-thirds of the Ohio college’s 60 Chinese students, some of whom had family members who were ill or quarantined, showed up for a low-key evening, mingling with Bolton and several faculty members over sesame dumplings and other Chinese food prepared by the dining staff.
“You are welcome here, and we support you,” Bolton said she told them.
We’re trying to have four or five different plans at the ready.
As the coronavirus risk spreads globally, colleges like Wooster are trying to look after the emotional needs of students who are a world away from loved ones — and who may not be able to return home anytime soon because of travel restrictions. But in drawing up plans to respond to the infectious respiratory disease the virus causes, Covid-19, they also must be mindful of the legal and visa restrictions that are unique to international students.
Among the considerations: What should they advise students whose visas or passports expire? If the outbreak persists into the summer, will they need to provide housing for those stranded in the United States? With quarantines slowing the global economy and keeping many people out of work in China, will international students need emergency financial help?
“We’re trying to have four or five different plans at the ready,” said Bri Rhodes, director of international-student advising at Mount Holyoke College.
On Friday the U.S. Department of Homeland Security removed one of the biggest hurdles for international students. A spokeswoman said the department would allow colleges to adapt their procedures and policies for international students to “address the significant public-health concerns associated with Covid-19.”
Colleges had been pressing the government to act so that international students could take online courses without jeopardizing their visa status. In a letter to Chad Wolfe, acting secretary of homeland security, Joseph E. Aoun, president of Northeastern University, which has moved classes on its Seattle campus online, called on the government to loosen the regulations. “Students should not be put in the difficult position of risking their health or jeopardizing their education,” he wrote.
In an email to The Chronicle, the homeland-security spokeswoman said that the new guidance, which follows a Department of Education memo on how colleges can respond to academic interruptions while complying with federal financial-aid law, “will enable students to temporarily participate in distance learning.” Colleges will have to report any “procedural adaptations” to the department, she added.
More details were to be provided to colleges in the coming days.
Disrupted Travel
For now, the most immediate challenge for colleges is spring break. Given the coronavirus’s swift global spread, many of them are advising students — American and international alike — against international travel. Destinations seen as safe today could suddenly become places to avoid.
Mount Holyoke is not prohibiting students’ personal travel, but it is urging them to exercise caution. For example, the college is telling Chinese students to carry printed copies of their recent travel history to show they have not been in China recently; people who are not American citizens and who have been in China in the previous 14 days are currently barred from entering the United States.
As colleges and universities have struggled to devise policies to respond to the quickly evolving situation, here are links to The Chronicle’s key coverage of how this worldwide health crisis is affecting campuses.
Alison W. McCarty, director of admissions and recruitment at MassBay Community College, in eastern Massachusetts, said she cautions students to read the fine print on airline policies and to purchase travel insurance in case their plans must change.
Some colleges are keeping open dormitories for international students who can’t return home. Wooster, whose break began on Friday, is expanding its usually bare-bones options for vacation dining. A local community group will host a dinner one night for international students.
Spring break could be a dry run for the summer, when more students could opt to stay on the campus, either because of the situation in their home countries or because they worry their studies could be disrupted if a new travel ban were put in place while they were outside the United States. If students do want to go home during the summer, McCarty is warning them to plan to return three weeks before the start of classes, in case a quarantine is ordered for travelers returning from their countries.
Typically, just a few dozen students remain at Mount Holyoke over the summer, but with 15 percent of the college’s 2,200 students coming from China, demand could increase sharply, Rhodes said. The fluidity of the situation makes planning a challenge. “We don’t know if we’ll have to house several hundred students or if we’ll have several hundred students request housing and then not need it,” she said. Advisers are trying to reassure students: “Yes, you will have options. We will make sure you won’t have to live under a bridge.”
Having many students remain on the campus means colleges will need to maintain services they usually reduce or eliminate during the summer months. At the University at Buffalo, part of the State University of New York, administrators will need to decide whether to keep the campus buses running and how many dining halls should remain open, said Kathryn E. Tudini, associate vice provost for international-student services.
With summer course registrations opening in a few weeks, Buffalo is debating whether to offer extra classes for students stuck on the campus. Lehigh University typically hosts a number of summer programs for international students and scholars as well as early-career professionals. Covid-19 could prevent many of those would-be participants from traveling to the Pennsylvania college, so the excess capacity could be used to provide programming for international students, said Cheryl Matherly, vice provost for international affairs.
In addition, Buffalo is working to provide extra on-campus jobs or internships for international students, Tudini said. Visa rules forbid international students to work off campus, and by staying in the United States, they may be forfeiting employment opportunities back home.
Student Finances at Risk
Not only could students incur extra expenses to stay in the United States over the summer, but their financial support from home could be at risk because of the economic fallout of the coronavirus, particularly in China, where some companies have been closed for weeks. At the undergraduate and master’s-degree level, international students typically pay the costs of their education.
The Institute of International Education has started an emergency fund to aid students affected by the coronavirus. Individual colleges said they had discussed the need to provide special assistance to students who could struggle to pay for tuition and other costs.
At the same time, colleges are scrambling to advise students who are set to graduate this spring. Those who do not plan to continue their studies or to stay in the United States to work must leave the country within 60 days of graduation. It’s not clear if the Department of Homeland Security’s relaxation of current rules — which the spokeswoman said were intended to ensure that students “can continue to make normal progress in a full course of study” — would apply to departure deadlines.
Both McCarty and Rhodes said they were encouraging all graduating students to apply for Optional Practical Training, or OPT, a program that allows students to stay in the United States and work for at least a year after graduation. “It might not be in the students’ plans, but it can give them more flexibility,” McCarty said. Still, finding an employer who will sponsor students for OPT can take time, and so students who want to participate in it need to plan in advance, McCarty said.
For all the pressing concerns about visas and immigration regulations, Rhodes said she tries to remember that students she and her colleagues are working with are young, far from home, and coping with uncertainty — and sometimes fear. “We can get in the weeds with all the visa stuff,” she said, “but it’s really important to remind ourselves of the psychic toll.”