Almost 8 in 10 college students say they wouldn’t attend parties in the fall: poll

Almost 8 in 10 college students said they don’t plan on attending parties during the fall semester amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to an Axios-College Reaction poll released Wednesday.

The poll found 76 percent of students said they would plan on returning to campus in the fall if they are permitted to do so. But many said they would be willing to sacrifice going to parties and sports games.

A total of 79 percent of students said they wouldn’t attend parties if they are held, and 71 percent said they wouldn’t go to sports games. 

Sixty-six percent of respondents said they would go to in-person classes if they are scheduled, but 67 percent said they would leave campus if a COVID-19 outbreak erupted. Slightly more than half, at 54 percent, said they would download an app to conduct contact tracing.  

The Axios-College Reaction poll surveyed 800 college students between July 13 and 14. Its margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. 

The poll comes as the Trump administration is advocating for schools and colleges to reopen in the fall, after essentially all were shut down in the spring due to the pandemic. President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have threatened to possibly cut federal funding from schools that do not reopen for in-person classes. 

The administration initially implemented a policy that would not allow international students to keep their visas if their schools taught only online classes. The decision was rescinded on Tuesday after criticism and several lawsuits filed against it, including one by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The U.S. is experiencing a rise in new coronavirus cases, with a seven-day average of 61,896 new cases a day as of Tuesday, The New York Times reported. States including Arizona, California, Florida and Texas are struggling to rein in outbreaks.