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A New York Times survey of every public four-year college in the country, as well as every private institution that competes in Division I sports or is a member of an elite group of research universities, revealed at least 6,600 cases of COVID. And the new academic year has not even begun at most schools. (Cai, Ivory, Smith, Lemonides and Higgins, 7/29)

This month, many colleges around the country plan to welcome back thousands of students into something they hope will resemble normal campus life. But they face challenges unlike any other American institution — containing the coronavirus among a young, impulsive population that not only studies together, but lives together, parties together, and, if decades of history are any guide, sleeps together. It will be a hugely complex and costly endeavor requiring far more than just the reconfiguring of dorm rooms and cafeterias and the construction of annexes and tent classrooms to increase social distancing. (Hartocollis and Hubler, 8/2)

Researchers who conducted a decision and cost-effectiveness study published today in JAMA Network Open have concluded that the safe reopening of US college campuses amid the COVID-19 pandemic this fall relies on every-other-day screening of asymptomatic students and strict compliance with physical distancing and infection-control protocols. The study involved modeling a hypothetical cohort of 4,990 healthy college students and 10 with undetected, asymptomatic COVID-19 infections at the start of the semester. (Van Beusekom, 7/31)

For months, nearly 3,000 miles has separated Benjamin Beckman, a Yale University music major in California, from his French horn back in Connecticut. The instrument was left behind in the hasty shutdown of colleges across the U.S. this spring as coronavirus hit—along with piles of laundry, snacks and personal belongings gathering dust for months in shuttered dorms at campuses across the country. Mr. Beckman, who lives in Los Angeles, was on spring break when Yale decided to close its campus. Finally, a friend was able to fetch the horn—worth thousands of dollars and crucial to his studies—from his dorm and recently shipped it back to him. (Brody and Korn, 8/2)

Long before Azan Virji entered medical school, a college counselor back home in Tanzania tried to dissuade him from coming to the U.S. to pursue a medical degree. The odds, he was told, would not be in his favor. Fewer than 3% of medical school applicants in the U.S. are international students, and only 0.5% of all medical school enrollees are from abroad. (Chakradhar, 8/3)