US university students face back-to-campus vaccine mandates

Legal precedent suggests that universities can mandate vaccinations, but not every COVID-19 vaccine has received full approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, leaving a legal grey area.

As United States college and university students gear up to return to campus for the fall semester after more than a year of remote or hybrid learning, education administrators across the country are making vaccination against COVID-19 a requirement for coming to campus. More than 1,000 public and private colleges and universities have mandated vaccines for at least some students and employees so far, according to a database maintained by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Those mandates come as cases have surged in some parts of the country, particularly among unvaccinated people. Yet in the same way that public health efforts like mask mandates and social-distancing measures have been politicised in the US, students’ reactions to vaccine mandates seem to largely fall along the same lines.