"Kids" are irresponsible but they aren't entirely stupid. You can't tell them to come back to
university en masse, with little more than "covid theater" to prevent the spread, and then blame them for behaving predictably. Perhaps "having a big party" is dumb but so is "packing people into a typical college dormitory." If your policies require 100% compliance to work, or even 90% compliance, they aren't going to work. Sucks, but true. Sure the one big party is bad, but then they all go spread it to the rest of the students who didn't go to the party. You don't need a lot of supposedly irresponsible behavior to doom the whole project.
And expecting college students to behave better than the supposedly responsible adults who haven't exactly been setting good examples...
Also, too, pay your fucking workers no matter what happens you assholes. Not like senior admin is going to furlough themselves if they send everyone home.
