Colleges and universities are putting extensive measures into place to try to minimize the spread of COVID-19, such as limiting who can enter campus, requiring masks, and mandating or offering different levels of testing.

But for many students at residential campuses, deciding where to live and how to learn involves fraught navigation, in which one question looms large: How seriously will their peers take COVID-19?

The digital divide has always existed in America. COVID-19, which forced the country to jump headfirst into an immersive, all-encompassing digital existence, is only exacerbating it. 

Research shows that 10 percent of the nation's college students—that's about 2 million people—don't have access to a laptop for school. The pandemic is pushing colleges and universities to change that.