Back-to-school is usually an exciting time for students, as the anticipation of seeing old friends, taking new courses and participating in fall semester activities fills the air – but this year is different.
Instead of embracing friends and gathering for mixers and meet-ups, students will be self-quarantining and keeping their distance according to guidelines in the University’s Roadmap to Fall.  
The Roadmap outlines basic procedures for preventing the spread of COVID-19 on campus, like the use of face covering and basic hygiene including frequent hand-washing.
Of course, none of these measures would need to be taken if the University took the initiative to move all courses online beginning in August. Instead, they’ve opted to get rid of fall break and transition completely online after Thanksgiving in order to reduce the increased risk of infection during the holiday season.
Superficially this seems like a solid enough plan. Students are likely to travel back home to be with their families during this time, after all, and could potentially be transporting the virus both to and from campus. 
But there is one major flaw. Those students will already be traveling in order to get to campus at the beginning of the semester and potentially exposing their classmates, professors and roommates to the virus just as they would be when traveling back to campus after fall break. 
What is so different about the travel risk in August compared to in November? Why is one acceptable while the other isn’t?
The answer is simple: there is no difference. Despite the seemingly endless stream of emails from the administration meant to reassure us that they’re ”taking many precautions as well as enacting new policies and procedures to ensure you remain safe and healthy during the fall semester,” it’s blatantly obvious that reopening campus has very little to do with protecting student interests.
The University simply cannot overlook the financial losses they would stand to take in a fully online semester. Student tuition and fees – including on-campus housing, dining and parking – made up 72.6% of the University’s 2019-2020 Budget Revenue; state funds, by comparison, made up only 24.3%. 
For those of us who disagree with the reopening, the obvious solution is simply to avoid campus as much as possible. Incoming freshmen won’t have that luxury. Following the University’s mandatory first-year housing expectation, all first-year students enrolled at the University full-time will be required to live on campus in the fall. 
What’s more, the incoming class is set to be so large the University will have no choice but to house some freshmen in upperclassman residential halls. Seven thousand students will be living on campus this semester, according to an Aug. 11 report by The Advocate, and the University and its staff clearly aren’t prepared for the months to come. 
One Resident Assistant, a student employee in charge of overlooking dorm activities, tested positive for COVID-19 during a training period in which staff members were mask-less and not socially distancing. Administrators have yet to address the incident or initiate contact tracing protocol. 
The University is not equipped to contain a pandemic when residential halls are half-full, much less when they’re completely flooded with hundreds more on the waiting list. RAs may be University employees, but they’re still students and should not be put in uncomfortable or dangerous situations just so the University can make more money. Students’ lives are far more valuable than on-campus housing fees.
When the fire alarm goes off, students don’t get a questionnaire on how important they think it is to evacuate the building, or whether they “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree” that someone should call the fire department.
This semester, LSU is going to get burned.  
Marie Plunkett is a 21-year-old classical studies senior from New Orleans, LA.