Colleges and universities across the country are closing their classrooms in response to COVID-19. But some students are calling on their schools to stay open. They say they'll suffer more hardship if their campus closes than if it remains open.

In this podcast, presidents and students at two colleges—one that closed and one that's still open—talk about how colleges and universities might be changed, permanently, by their responses to the pandemic.

The college-admissions calendar is kaput. For decades, higher education has clung to well-defined seasonal rituals governed by deadlines that ordered the phases of the admissions process. 

But that won’t work this year, some enrollment officials say. At least three dozen institutions have pushed back their May 1 deposit deadlines by a month, and several more were poised to do so this week. Concern for applicants and their families is driving those decisions. So is concern for the bottom line. The traditional deadline might leave some colleges too little time to yield the class they plan to enroll—and the revenue they expect to bring in.