Any reasonable administrative body would look at the circumstances involved in this and do the thing that would disrupt lives the least for the benefit of everyone involved.
"So on the one hand it's actually an improvement."
The universities knew this was a possibility. They want to charge full tuition (particularly to their international students who account for a disproportionate share of revenue) and go online-only with no consequences. I'm not sure that's entirely reasonable either.
From my experience, distance learning isn't really worth very much. This applies to K-12 as well as university. I think it's entirely reasonable to expect in-person classes in the Fall if you're paying full tuition. We expect our grocery store workers to show up and do their jobs during COVID, I think it's reasonable to expect the same of university faculty.
Sure. Universities are megacorporations that aren't exactly doing it for charity. They charge an arm and a leg and online education sucks by comparison. I'd like to see universities slash their tuitions for the online system.
Literally none of that makes it okay to evict people from the country under this policy. This isn't about the Trump administration standing up for students against universities. This is about the Trump administration shitting on immigrants.
It's not typically attending the classes themselves that are the benefits of going to college. It's working with other students on homework, projects, etc., networking, socializing.
Any reasonable administrative body would look at the circumstances involved in this and do the thing that would disrupt lives the least for the benefit of everyone involved.
"So on the one hand it's actually an improvement."
This seems kind of silly.