Fall Commencement not accessible to all students

Canceled spring breaks. A lost final semester of in-person learning. Halted internships and job offers. Then, the final double-whammy hit the Class of 2020 with a postponed Commencement and perhaps the biggest recession America has seen since the Great Depression ahead. The forthcoming diplomas come with tickets to the most turbulent world since World War II.

Families of students have dealt with relative disappointment ranging from fear of missing out to severe financial crises showcased by more than 6.6 million Americans losing their jobs entirely or temporarily, according to a Department of Labor report. Chancellor Kent Syverud’s announcement on Wednesday that commencement will happen in-person at “our stadium” provided the Class of 2020 with the first sliver of good news since Syracuse University postponed classes just more than four weeks ago.

For some, it’ll simply be another loss. A devastating blow to the most financially vulnerable students. When the fall arrives, most of the Class of 2020 will no longer be Syracuse students, which means no housing, financial aid or reason to be on campus whenever this hypothetical graduation commences. They’ll be picking up the pieces from months of lost income for their families and getting ahead on deferred student loan interest that barely affected a class already entering grace periods.

To put it succinctly, some students in the Class of 2020 will not be able to afford to attend a fall commencement.

Syracuse should not host one for more affluent students, who were able to quarantine comfortably at home, to put those working out of the COVID-19 hole at home into shame. SU can and should bridge this accessibility gap. Any student who wants the opportunity to attend should not be prevented strictly due to financial limitations.

The first hurdle is housing. Even for off-campus students, in my case at Theory Syracuse, most leases end in July or August. Almost no student from the Class of 2020 returning for a fall graduation will have access to housing, unless they are members of Greek Life with existing structures on campus. That itself is associated with money, given the costs of participating. Hotel space will be limited and costly.

Syracuse should aim to host commencement in August, before the fall 2020 semester, if health professionals allow. That would open SU’s 21 residential halls, with a capacity of more than 8,000, and South Campus, with room for over 2,500, for students and families. That should be more than enough for an undergraduate class of between 3,000 and 4,000, with additional graduate and law grads.

A one-night stay at the Sheraton by Syracuse University currently ranges between $130 to $150. The original graduation date in May spiked that price, and without off-campus housing that would have housed some, the demand and price for limited hotel space will only increase in the fall. Visit Syracuse estimates Onondaga County has more than 7,000 hotel rooms.

Students will also disperse all over the country while travel companies try to recoup lost revenue from the coronavirus. Travel costs will likely increase even more when a graduation date is announced, further boxing out financially vulnerable students.

Syracuse took the necessary step of refunding some costs to students forced to abandon campus. It did not refund tuition, even as some majors and coursework became practically impossible to replicate in online settings. Art and broadcast journalism students I’ve spoken to have had their curriculums irrevocably uprooted, while some professors understandably struggle to adjust to teaching online.

Class of 2020 students who paid a full semester of tuition and lost half of it on-campus will not be refunded for that. Nor will they recover the costs of lost instruction while a white supremacist manifesto posted late in the 2019 fall semester chilled campus, or when students had to pick between showing solidarity with #NotAgainSU protests or class this year.

Syracuse University owes it to this class’ most vulnerable students to provide a commencement ceremony that’s as inclusive as possible, and any costs associated with that will be a form of reparation for the most one of the school’s most adversely affected classes in recent memory.

Bobby Manning

Senior, Newspaper and Online Journalism