Depends - On outside data
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Whether universities should open depends on testing capacity
If testing capacity in the community of the school is already at or near capacity, then no, otherwise it may present a reasonable risk.
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The Argument
Every college that has reopened for the fall semester hopes to perform COVID-19 testing regularly.
The president of Purdue University, Mitch Daniels, says there will be a "robust testing system during the school year."[1] The president of Brown University, Christina Paxson, says the following: "All campuses must be able to conduct rapid testing for the coronavirus for all students when they first arrive on campus and at regular intervals throughout the year."[1]
The American College Health Association states in their guidelines that colleges may resume in-person activities if there is rigorous testing, contact tracing, and isolation/quarantine of infected and symptomatic individuals on campus and in the larger community.[2]
Every college that has reopened should have the capacity to run diagnostic testing on students, staff, and faculty regularly. If the university can do this, then it should remain open for in-person activities. If it cannot, then it should close until it can test everyone regularly again.
Counter arguments
Even if colleges have adequate testing capacities, there are still going to be issues that come with reopening colleges.
Firstly, the cost of testing is very high. For example, the University of Wisconsin expects to pay $20 million for each round of college-wide testing.[1]The chancellor of California State University, Timothy White, says that testing half of the college's student population will cost $25 million per week.[1]
This high cost is too much to handle for many institutions, so remaining closed and moving everything online, for now, seems like the better option.