Students walk at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, N.C., September 20, 2018. (Jonathan Drake/Reuters)

The pandemic has created great problems for higher education. In today’s Martin Center article, Shannon Watkins writes about the way schools in North Carolina have responded.

One problem is going to be the need to refund students the money they’re owed for housing and meals. That’s a lot of money schools hadn’t budgeted for, and the UNC system isn’t allowed to borrow money for operating expenses. It isn’t yet clear how that problem will be handled.


On a positive note, some schools are putting their now empty dorms to use as medical treatment centers.

For some reason, there’s pressure to switch to pass/fail grading during the crisis. Duke has gone that way, and UNC schools are considering it.

Traditional graduation ceremonies have been nixed, but students will nevertheless graduate.

And how about the fall? For UNC, that remains an open question.