A typical school day for Elon University junior Skyler Sajewski began at 7 a.m., starting with ballet, history, economics and tap classes, then rehersal for the upcoming musical. She would get back to her apartment around 11 p.m.

Then, the COVID pandemic hit.

The musical theater major who was used to “constantly running from place to place” returned home to Florida to shelter in place. She’s worried about missing out on “literally all of it” in terms of preparing for her future career.

“To be a well-rounded musical theater performer, you have to have a certain set of skills and be really good at them,” Sajewski said. “And you know, I go to a school to constantly get better. And this year, if I reach a plateau of no growth it could be potentially harming versus someone who went all their four years.”

Sajewski is not alone in her anxieties for the future. She has friends who are considering taking a semester -- or even a year -- off, realizing that an online arts education may not be worth it.

When she returned home, Sajewski and her peers were faced with “Zoom University” -- what many students are calling online classes -- as musical theater majors. In last semester’s acting class, she and her fellow “MTs,” were “literally screaming in each other’s faces” when they were working on Greek theater.

Into the screens of their laptops.

For a “pretty demanding” class “where you really have to get into your body and your voice,” moving to remote learning required adjustments.

“In acting, there's a lot of, with permission, there's a lot of touching,” Sajewski said. “We do partner warm ups, to get the voice open and ready by, patting them on the back really hard and doing all of this physical activity with your partner where you're in very close corners. [Then], the pandemic hits. We are now home, my lovely scene partner and I, that we're working on the Greek [acting class] and are now doing it over Zoom, which is incredibly hard because you can only see their face.”

Sajewski said it wasn’t ideal for acting class.

“How can you see what my face is doing? You know what I mean? So we acted right up to the camera. So even though the Greek piece is supposed to be a whole body experience, we were mostly just using our face. It's hard to act over Zoom. Like the whole point of acting is to react. And when you're reacting over a camera where someone could be frozen one second, it's just, it's not organic. It doesn't feel like it's supposed to feel, but you know, we did our best with it.”

Sajewski said she considered taking a gap year.

“When I found out that classmates of mine were doing that, and that idea became real to me, it honestly freaked me out because I've always known that I was graduating in 2022 when I was going to move to New York and start my life. And for that to be affected by this unprecedented pandemic is, is really scary to me.”

Sidney Rubinowicz said she plans to take a gap year from her production design studies at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Productions at Carnegie Mellon were canceled for the first semester and are planning on a double season for the second.

“Next year, I was going to start getting lead stage manager assignments,” Rubinowicz said. “And I would be really, really sad if I didn't have those. And for me, production is a bigger part of my education and my classes are, and I think a lot of people agree with that. So I will just be back in a year, hopefully things are better.”

The would-be junior at Carnegie Mellon says that she’s always been “five years ahead” in knowing what she wanted to do. Before middle school, she knew where she wanted to attend high school and in high school, she immediately knew where she wanted to go to college.

“It's so weird to be like, ‘I have no idea what I'm doing,’” she said. “I think I'm just a little more open minded now. And I think it's not even that, I was like, ‘You have to have a plan’ but … now everyone is thrown for a loop.”

Carnegie Mellon is not offering a refund on housing or tuition, but they will allow students to choose to stay or withdraw after 10 days on campus.

At Tisch School of the Arts at New York University -- like many other universities -- students are asking for partial reimbursement from the spring semester.

“NYU ignores the fact that us art students will be paying full price for an education that lacks the facilities, equipment, technology, services and hands-on experience we are explicitly paying for,” the petition stated.

“While we appreciate the concerted efforts of our professors to salvage what’s left of our education, we reject the assumption that an online Zoom education is equitable in content and value.”

Students wrote testimonials to represent the studios that they are a part of at Tisch. Dancers, actors, filmmakers and writers alike came together in a series of Google documents to tell the administration how they were feeling.

One student in dance program wrote that “these technique classes require specific equipment and a certain amount of space in order to be able to execute the exercises efficiently. Dancers also require physical attention and corrections from our instructors which is almost impossible to do on Zoom.”

Tisch later issued fee refunds.

When performing arts curriculums will resume in person at schools nationwide is unknown. Sajewski and her colleagues say they realize you don’t have to go to school to work in the arts. But a bachelor of fine arts has its benefits.

“You could very well just go out there and try your best, people can do it. They made [in the industry], they didn't go to school and they're fine,” she said. “But those of us that choose to go, further their education because we want to learn and better ourselves in the best way we know possible, which is through schooling. And if we can’t, you know, why am I going to school?”

Future job prospects, not always robust for artists, are fewer because of the pandemic.

“There's so many artists without a job right now. And it's scary.”

The administration of President Donald Trump said on Monday it will review Columbia University's federal contracts and grants over allegations of antisemitism, which it says the educational institution has shown inaction in tackling.

Rights advocates note rising antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias since U.S. ally Israel's devastating military assault on Gaza began after Palestinian Hamas militants' deadly October 2023 attack.

The Justice Department said a month ago it formed a task force to fight antisemitism. The U.S. Departments of Health and Education and the General Services Administration jointly made the review announcement on Monday.

"The Federal Government's Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is considering Stop Work Orders for $51.4 million in contracts between Columbia University and the Federal Government," the joint statement said.

The agencies said no contracting actions had been taken yet.

"The task force will also conduct a comprehensive review of the more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments to Columbia University."

The agencies did not respond to requests for comment on whether there were similar reviews over allegations of Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias.

Columbia had no immediate comment. It previously said it made efforts to tackle antisemitism.

College protests

Trump has signed an executive order to combat antisemitism and pledged to deport non-citizen college students and others who took part in pro-Palestinian protests.

Columbia was at the center of college protests in which demonstrators demanded an end to U.S. support for Israel due to the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's assault on Gaza. There were allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia in protests and counter-protests.

During last summer's demonstrations around the country, classes were canceled, some university administrators resigned and student protesters were suspended and arrested.

While the intensity of protests has decreased in recent months, there were some demonstrations last week in New York after the expulsion of two students at Columbia University-affiliated Barnard College and after New York Governor Kathy Hochul ordered the removal of a Palestinian studies job listing at Hunter College.

A third student at Barnard College has since been expelled, this one related to the occupation of the Hamilton Hall building at Columbia last year.

The Trump administration is opening new investigations into allegations of antisemitism at five U.S. universities including Columbia and the University of California, Berkeley, the Education Department announced Monday.

It's part of President Donald Trump's promise to take a tougher stance against campus antisemitism and deal out harsher penalties than the Biden administration, which settled a flurry of cases with universities in its final weeks. It comes the same day the Justice Department announced a new task force to root out antisemitism on college campuses.

In an order signed last week, Trump called for aggressive action to fight anti-Jewish bias on campuses, including the deportation of foreign students who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

Along with Columbia and Berkeley, the department is now investigating the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University and Portland State University. The cases were opened using the department's power to launch its own civil rights reviews, unlike the majority of investigations, which stem from complaints.

Messages seeking comment were left with all five universities.
A statement from the Education Department criticized colleges for tolerating antisemitism after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and a wave of pro-Palestinian protests that followed. It also criticized the Biden administration for negotiating "toothless" resolutions that failed to hold schools accountable.

"Today, the Department is putting universities, colleges, and K-12 schools on notice: this administration will not tolerate continued institutional indifference to the wellbeing of Jewish students on American campuses," said Craig Trainor, the agency's acting assistant secretary for civil rights.

The department didn't provide details about the inquiries or how it decided which schools are being targeted. Presidents of Columbia and Northwestern were among those called to testify on Capitol Hill last year as Republicans sought accountability for allegations of antisemitism. The hearings contributed to the resignation of multiple university presidents, including Columbia's Minouche Shafik.

An October report from House Republicans accused Columbia of failing to punish pro-Palestinian students who took over a campus building, and it called Northwestern's negotiations with student protesters a "stunning capitulation."

House Republicans applauded the new investigations. Representative Tim Walberg, chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, said he was "glad that we finally have an administration who is taking action to protect Jewish students."

Trump's order also calls for a full review of antisemitism complaints filed with the Education Department since Oct. 7, 2023, including pending and resolved cases from the Biden administration. It encourages the Justice Department to take action to enforce civil rights laws.

Last week's order drew backlash from civil rights groups who said it violated First Amendment rights that protect political speech.

The new task force announced Monday includes the Justice and Education departments along with Health and Human Services.

"The Department takes seriously our responsibility to eradicate this hatred wherever it is found," said Leo Terrell, assistant attorney general for civil rights. "The Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is the first step in giving life to President Trump's renewed commitment to ending anti-Semitism in our schools."

The Times of India breaks down the most popular subjects for international students to study in the U.S.

STEM and business lead the pack. Read the full story here. (January 2025)

U.S. News & World report addresses some of the misconceptions about U.S. colleges and universities, including the difficulty of getting a visa.

Read the full story here. (January 2025)