Should colleges and universities open in person for the Fall 2020 semester?

Whether universities should open depends on student locations

Question: Should colleges and universities open in person for the Fall 2020 semester?
Position‹3 of 3: Depends - On outside data
Argument‹4 of 5›: Whether universities should open depends on student locations

Are students coming from areas with high levels of transmission? If yes, then the risk will be higher and you will need to analyze this data.

The argument

During the Fall semester, students move to many different areas of the world to attend college or University, causing great concern during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many students may travel from a high-risk area to a college located in a lower risk area, therefore, putting increasing the chances of spreading the virus among campus. Students traveling from a high-risk area should be tested for COVID-19 before moving to college dorms or attending classes on campus. Generally speaking, all students should be tested before arriving at school for the Fall semester. However, students from high-risk areas are the greatest concern when it comes to testing. Though it may seem wrong to discriminate on student locations, it is important to take precautions so that low-risk areas avoid a spike in COVID-19 cases.

Premises

[P1]In the fall, students travel from many regions, some from high-risk COVID-19 areas to lower-risk campuses, raising the chance of spreading the virus. [P2] Students, especially those from high-risk areas, should be tested for COVID-19 before moving into dorms or attending classes. [P3] Because the risk depends on where students come from, the reopening decision turns on this outside data rather than a blanket rule. [C] Therefore, whether universities should open depends on student locations and the data they imply.

Counter-arguments

Whether students are traveling from a high-risk area or a low-risk area should not be a deciding factor when it comes to the re-opening of college campuses. Students should avoid attending college campuses until the number of COVID-19 cases has decreased significantly. Once the number of cases goes down for a significant amount of time, and students can go back to on-campus learning, students will be allowed to travel anywhere to attend the school of their choice without having to undergo COVID-19 testing or other obstacles to attend school. Students should feel safe when they are away from home, and with the stresses of COVID-19 on students and staff, it will be harder for them to succeed when they feel they are unsafe from the virus.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Movement between regions is a reason for precautions, but under widespread community transmission the high-risk/low-risk distinction is unstable: an area's classification can change within weeks, and a campus generates its own transmission once assembled regardless of where its students travelled from. [Rejecting P2] Pre-arrival testing gives a snapshot. A single negative result does not cover exposure during travel or in the days after, which is why quarantine and repeat testing are the usual protocol — the premise treats one test as though it resolved the risk it has just identified. [Rejecting P3] The argument names one input and calls it the deciding factor, which is narrower than the position it supports. "Depends on outside data" would take in local case rates, testing and tracing capacity, hospital headroom, ventilation and housing density; student origin is one variable among these, and the counter-argument's point — that the sensible threshold is the overall case trend — goes unanswered.