College students on high COVID alert ahead of return to campus
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Illustration: Rae Cook/Axios
With the Delta variant surging, college students are not ready to resume campus life as normal, according to a new Generation Lab/Axios poll.
Why it matters: For four-year students who enrolled in 2019-20, there is just one year remaining to enjoy something resembling a regular college experience.
Out of a list of activities that included going to an indoor party, dancing with others, and close conversations without masks, 55% of students considered none of the above to be safe.
- 60% say restrictions should be imposed on large social gatherings.
- 45% say they would only feel comfortable at indoor gatherings where everyone had been vaccinated.
Driving the news: Already, tens of thousands of students across different education levels across the country are isolating after testing positive of being exposed to COVID-19.
College students are also big fans of vaccine mandates — in many cases, bigger fans than their university administrators.
- 73% say their school should implement a vaccine mandate for those on campus, while 52% say their schools are doing so.
- 86% say they are fully vaccinated, while 6% say they definitely won't get the shots.
Many staff and professors share the concerns about a return to campus.
- "You're putting me in a petri dish for an hour and 15 minutes when I'm teaching," Youngstown State ethics professor Mark Vopat told Forbes.
Methodology: This study was conducted August 11-13 from a representative sample of 846 students nationwide from 2-year and 4-year schools. The margin of error is +/- 3.4 percentage points. The Generation Lab conducts polling using a demographically representative sample frame of college students at community colleges, technical colleges, trade schools and public and private four-year institutions.
