Princeton University will discount tuition, shorten semester, invite freshmen and rising juniors back for the fall semester

Princeton University will bring back about half of its undergraduates for each semester and most teaching will take place online, school officials said on Monday just hours after Rutgers University officials announced fall plans.

First-year students in the class of 2024 and rising juniors can be on campus for the fall semester. In the spring term, the school will welcome back sophomores and seniors in the 2021 graduating class.

All undergraduates will have the option to complete the entire school year remotely.

Graduate programs will resume on campus in the fall. Graduate-level courses and graduate advising can occur in person or virtually.

The fall semester will begin on August 31. The fall break will only be a long weekend, and students will be asked to leave campus for the semester before Thanksgiving. The fall reading period and examinations will be fully remote. Spring break will also be a long weekend to reduce travel during the second semester.

“As students consider their choices, they should bear in mind that the campus experience will be very different from an ordinary year,” Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber wrote in his latest letter to the campus community on Monday. “Most undergraduate teaching will be online rather than in person even for on-campus students. Many activities will be unavailable, impermissible, or highly regulated. Parties will be prohibited. Masks will be required in indoor spaces, including in all classrooms, laboratories, and libraries. Social distancing will be the norm. Travel will be limited.”

University officials will try to accommodate a limited number of other students whose special circumstances require them to be on campus in specific semesters, Eisgruber wrote. In the fall term, that will include a small number of seniors whose thesis research must be done on campus. The university will also accommodate students who face housing insecurity, new transfer students, and ROTC students on campus in the fall.

The university will test students for COVID-19 when they arrive, and students will be tested regularly. Isolation will be mandatory for students who test positive for COVID-19, and quarantine will be mandatory for students who have been in contact with someone who gets COVID-19.

Because officials anticipate that most undergraduates will have the opportunity to study on campus only for one semester or less, the university will discount the full-year undergraduate tuition by ten percent for this academic year, Eisgruber wrote. The discount will apply to all undergraduates, regardless of when or whether they are on campus. Other discounts will also be applied to the undergraduate fee package, including the pro‑ration of room and board charges for shortened semesters and the elimination of some fees. 

“Over the last two months, my colleagues and I have been studying the pandemic and identifying measures we can take to accommodate students on campus,” Eisgruber write. “COVID-19 is still a very new disease, and much remains unknown about it. Several points have, however, become clear. Based on the information now available to us, we believe Princeton will be able to offer all of our undergraduate students at least one semester of on-campus education this academic year, but we will need to do much of our teaching online and remotely.”

Eisgruber noted that while New Jersey has significantly reduced the spread of COVID-19, the United States is nowhere close to controlling the disease. “Over the past two weeks, new cases have risen sharply in several states. Continued vigilance will be essential throughout the next year, and we should expect waves of infection to occur in the fall and most likely in the spring as well,” he wrote.

He also noted that COVID-19 appears to spread principally through the inhalation of airborne particles. “As a result, the risk of transmission is highest when people are indoors and near one another for extended periods of time. Unfortunately, these conditions exist throughout collegiate life, including in classroom teaching, dormitory living, and communal dining,” he wrote.

State law and public health guidance restrict university opening options for the fall in New Jersey. Eisgruber said the guidance from the state on reopening presents special challenges for colleges and universities that provide on-campus housing for nearly all of their students. State regulations do not permit schools to operate dormitories at their full capacity, and schools are required to have adequate quarantine and isolation plans for students. Schools must also be able to maintain six feet of separation between students attending classes in person. “Under these circumstances, it would be pointless if not impossible to invite back all of our undergraduates in the fall term: we could not house them on campus or provide them with a meaningful residential experience,” Eisgruber wrote.

“This pandemic is a long-term crisis. Though scientists throughout the world are working with unprecedented focus to find treatments and vaccines, there is no telling if or when they will succeed,” Eisgruber wrote. “We cannot simply sit on the sidelines and wait it out; we must all find ways to persist through it. For Princeton, that means we must both offer high-quality education remotely and also start working our way back toward residential education now, despite the obstacles that I have mentioned.”

The Council of Ivy League Presidents will announce a decision about fall intercollegiate athletics on July 8.

Undergraduates will be required to sign a social contract describing their responsibilities in this pandemic. “Our collective success will depend on all of our individual actions. If students are unwilling or unable to comply with the restrictions described above and in the social contract, they should not come to campus,” Eisgruber wrote.

Eisgruber added that there are no guarantees about what will happen as the semester and the academic year unfold. Officials will continue to reevaluate plans as the situation evolves. “If developments allow, we will invite back more students in the spring. Unfortunately, it is also possible that matters will get worse. If so, we may have to send students home in the fall or reduce the size of the anticipated campus population in the spring,” Eisgruber wrote.

“This year will be far from normal, whether students are on campus or not. This pandemic is among the worst crises ever to hit Princeton or college education more broadly,” Eisgruber wrote. “Princeton’s preferred model of education emphasizes in-person engagement, but in-person engagement is what spreads this terrible virus. While I wish that we might return immediately to the kind of campus life that we enjoyed when March 2020 began, this moment imposes different responsibilities upon us. I am grateful to all of you for shouldering those responsibilities together, and for approaching them with creativity, determination, and resilience.”