This year a lot of students who never used an online education system got familiar with it. Lucy Tu is one of them. Like most of the senior graduates she finished her last high school year online, while she was writing the school’s newspaper and sharing it in chats and video calls, she even participated in a national speech tournament online and her graduation was an online party in Zoom. But she is cool with that because she knows that she is not the only one experiencing this extraordinary situation.

Her biggest wish now is to start her freshman year at Harvard not online but as normal in person. She wants to attend the classes and meet her new colleagues like normal people do not on Zoom. There is a big difference if you listen to your lectures in person than just hearing it online and communicating with the professors and mates on the screen.

Harvard announced their plans to start the year completely online in the fall and this is a badd news for all the freshmen like Lucy. The will skip the excitement to meet the campus and their new peers. So the university’s plan is to invited the freshmen in the campus at the beginning of the year and then in the spring seniors. So those who are at the campus could attend the classes online from their dorms.

Lucy expected some changes and difficulties because of the world’s situation right now but the thing that really surprised her was the tuition fee which is around  $50 000 and that’s without paying for dormitory and board. So the freshmen have 3 options : the first one is to pay the whole price which is $63,000 and live on the campus during the semester, take her classes only online and almost no experience with her classmates, the second option is to pay the $50,000 fee and take her classes in her home in Omaha again online and third is to take  gap year in these hard times when everything is so difficult and start in 2021 as a freshman and the everything will be normal hopefully.

Tu said that she was disappointed while she heard the bad news and her 3 less than attractive options. None of them is pleasurable because it will be okay if you pay this amount of money but you have the full benefit of the resources on the campus and be with your colleagues. Just the online classes sounds like it’s not even worth it.

Recent graduates who already chose a school have another tough choice to do – being on campus and taking their classes from the dorm room or participating in the tuition from their homes. And now another question is popping: “Is college even worth those expenses right now ? ”

For Tu the price is weighing a lot. She does not have any financial aid and she is not willing to pay her tuition through scholarship or loans. For her parents it is hard to pay even half of the expenses right now and they are asking the question is that even worth it.

Since her parents are earning too much to be eligible for financial aid they have to pay Lucy and her older brother tuition fees by themselves. Another thing is that they have had their salaries reduced since the coronavirus situation. That is why her mother prefers to pay only for the tuition and have Lucy at home attending her online classes.

Most of the parents who are paying for their kids' education are hoping for expense reduction because of the difficult times. This is the reason why many of the freshmen and not only them will be staying at home this fall.

 Mark Kantrowitz, who is a financial aid and student loans expert says that the situation is pretty difficult right now because parents and students have to choose between health and safety and ,delaying their education or is the cost worth it due to the situation. Many universities cut their expenses or offered the freshmen to take a gap year which is a great opportunity for the students.