Spring Break Is Already Canceled

Weeks into the fall semester, colleges are already calling off spring break due to COVID-19

spring break
No spring break this year.
Getty Images

Tomorrow is the first day of fall, Halloween candy has been on the shelves since early August, but seasons aren’t real anymore and time doesn’t matter, so let’s talk about spring break in September, because why the hell not?

Bad news: it’s canceled. Hardly a month into the fall semester, colleges are already eliminating spring break for students in a preemptive attempt to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Paper magazine reports that multiple universities including Carnegie Mellon, Purdue University, Ohio State University, University of Iowa, and the University of Michigan are already calling off spring break in an attempt to limit the amount of reckless partying typically associated with the mid-semester vacation.

Last year, spring break trips and parties were a big cause of concern among the COVID-conscious, and a recent study of 7 million U.S. college students by Ball State University found that some spring breakers actually did bring the virus back to campus. Several months later, since we’re still living in a pandemic from which we seem increasingly unlikely to ever truly emerge, colleges are trying to plan ahead for next year. According to Paper, schools are rearranging their calendars to cut out spring break in the hopes of keeping would-be spring breakers from spreading the virus through travel and partying.

Meanwhile, the fall semester isn’t off to a great start on many campuses around the country. Since welcoming students back, however cautiously, in recent weeks and months, many colleges and universities have struggled to enforce social distancing practices, with multiple, extremely predictable reports of COVID-negligent parties surfacing from schools throughout the country. But don’t worry, I’m sure canceling spring break is all we need to keep this virus under control.

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