The Price to Party — How COVID-19 is impacting colleges

*names changed to protect identity

With a disposable mask dangling from her wrist, she squeezed into a crammed frat room. 

It was the infamous “sylly” week, the first week of classes at the University of Missouri where  students’ workload is solely reading over the syllabus. Everyone was ready for their nightly routine — dress up in tube tops, jump around to secretive parties, hope the cops don’t show up. 

They’d all heard the stories from older kids, according to East alum and MU freshman Candace Johnson*, and they were ready to experience college night life for themselves — even with coronavirus cases multiplying daily in their college town. 

“I was just thinking, ‘I want to have fun, I want to have a college experience, I want to have sylly week,’” Johnson said. “Everyone talks about it, I wanna have mine. Going into a frat [party], I knew exactly what was gonna happen.”

After the first week of going out, Johnson and her friends tested positive, so they, along with hundreds of other students, were sent home to quarantine for 14 days. But they weren’t surprised in the slightest. They’d already decided that going to frat parties was worth the risk of getting Covid, according to Johnson.

College kids across the country made it back to campus after months of quarantine, and many of them couldn’t wait to get back into their partying routine, or experience it for the first time. Now that the cases in college towns are rapidly increasing, community members and local business owners are concerned for their own well-being. At East-alum-populated schools such as MU and KU, local law enforcement is now stepping in where the colleges can’t by issuing citations and breaking up off-campus parties. 

According to Johnson, freshmen came to campus hoping for freedom and a real college experience after the end of their senior year was taken from them — even if it meant it was just for the first week. Returning students craved the crowded bars and gameday tailgates they were accustomed to before being sent home for the spring semester.

“I think from personal experience it’s hard for me to not want to live my life like I normally would knowing that if I got [the coronavirus], the chances of me getting very sick are very slim,” University of Oklahoma sophomore and East alum Molly Smith* said. 

According to Smith, many of her friends from both college and East rationalize their desire for a social life with statistics that show how their age group is rarely placed in critical condition from the virus — 0.5% of almost 150,000 deaths were citizens aged 18-29, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

But even if the death rate for college kids isn’t high, the infection rates are. Douglas County, where KU is located, had new case averages in the single digits throughout the first four months of lockdown. Now, the average for new case numbers increases to around 40 every day, which impacts all age groups, according to the Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health Department.

“As soon as everybody came back, it just exploded,” Lawrence resident and University of Kansas staff member Ali Wellinghoff said. “Obviously when you bring 20-some thousand extra people, the number of cases are going up, but there’s something to be said that their behavior is different than everybody else.”

Wellinghoff drives by houses around campus to see hundreds of kids gathered shoulder to shoulder without masks, and she’s noticed frustration among her community members because many students aren’t trying to distance or follow the rules at all. 

With cases rising, local bars and restaurants, such as Brother’s Bar & Grill in Lawrence or Nashvegas in Columbia, are closing indefinitely to keep everyone safe. According to Johnson, her and her friends don’t necessarily consider the long-term effects if places like those stay closed, they’re just disappointed that one of their go-to bar spots isn’t open for the time being.

“[Most college kids] just feel like they’re invincible and also don’t think their consequences have a ripple effect — that while it might not affect them, the people they come in contact with can be affected,” Wellinghoff said. “I feel like everybody was of the mindset of we’re in this together — before KU started classes — and now we still feel this way but the students just don’t feel that way.”

Since many of the parties are occurring off campus, the community’s frustration primarily came from the fact that KU couldn’t do anything to stop them, according to Wellinghoff. But some college towns, including Lawrence, are now passing ordinances that enable police to get involved if students don’t follow safety precautions, whether that be through issuing citations or requiring fines to be paid for not wearing masks. 

“I don’t think it’s gonna be the cases that are gonna slow kids down, I think it’s probably the immediate consequences of unfortunately having to pay a $500 fine,” Lawrence resident and KU parent Margaret Weisbrod said. “That’s an immediate consequence, and getting sick or possible infection is a consequence that’s a little less tangible in the moment.”

Lawrence city commissioners voted 4-1 to approve an ordinance on Thursday, Sept. 17 that gives police power to issue a ticket up to $500 if students aren’t adhering to social distancing guidelines. 

“There are vulnerable people in our community that are relying on us to do what we can to ensure their safety during this pandemic, and that’s what we need to do,” Commissioner Stuart Boely said in an interview with KCTV5 News. 

Johnson, who goes to MU, knows she can get a citation for not wearing a mask in a large group, and she feels that if she sees these types of punishments firsthand as they become more widespread, her friends may slow down and stop going out as much, but might still find smaller events to go to. 

University of Michigan senior Katie Kuhlman feels that the way college kids have acted isn’t surprising, so local and state law enforcement should continue to step in and enforce these regulations. 

“I think it’s important to keep [the community] in mind because I feel like with college we are visitors, like I am a guest to Ann Arbor and I would have a lot of trouble sleeping at night if I knew I was potentially keeping a bunch of local residents sick just because I wanted to go to a bar,” Kuhlman said. 

Weisbrod and Wellinghoff don’t think the social aspect of college needs to be completely taken out — students could gather in small cohorts or go out to eat on patios with masks and proper distancing. It’s the endless frat parties with hundreds of people that they wish people would be more cautious with. 

“I don’t know how to get the point across to people that it really is life or death,” Weisbrod said. “It’s somebody’s life or death. And is that worth drinking a beer sitting on your boyfriend’s lap that you haven’t seen in six months or whatever? It’s not. Come be with your friends six feet away with masks on. You can still do it, just not on top of each other.”