U.S. College vaccination requirements vary widely with confusing rules

Confusing rules, loopholes and legal issues: College vaccination plans are a mess In just the last two weeks, more than 120 of nearly 400 public and private colleges and universities analyzed by NBC News have added vaccination requirements. NBC News

When the coronavirus began to spread around the country last year, most colleges and universities shut their doors. And when they began to reopen in the fall, they did so in piecemeal and convoluted ways.

In some cases, students could live in dorms but had to take classes online. Dining halls were reservation-only. Singing was banned. While some schools avoided major outbreaks, others became hot spots.

The introduction of three Covid-19 vaccines in early 2021 seemed to present an exit from these patchwork reopenings, which robbed students of a traditional college experience. But an NBC News analysis of rules across the U.S. found that vaccination requirements for students have proven to be just as complicated as the frenetic fall 2020 semester, if not more so.

In Texas, public universities can’t require a vaccination, but private ones can. In Massachusetts, where colleges and universities can mandate Covid-19 vaccinations, 43 of more than 100 had agreed to do so by mid-May. In New York, public universities cannot allow for religious exemptions, while a majority of the state’s private universities can.

That patchwork approach is reflected across the country. An NBC News analysis of nearly 400 colleges and universities that are requiring the Covid-19 vaccination found that the vast majority have unclear directives, loopholes or legal complications that are leaving professors frustrated, students unmotivated and a potential public health crisis come fall. To add to the confusion, among all states and jurisdictions, 19 have statewide regulations for public colleges: Seven require vaccinations for students and 12 do not.

Among other findings in the analysis:

• Sixty-seven percent of schools in Hawaii and 50 percent in New York require vaccinations.
• Schools in 15 states, including Alabama, Florida and Arizona, which have seen some of the highest numbers of Covid-19 cases in the country, do not require their students to be vaccinated.
• Fourteen of the 15 states that do not currently require vaccinations at their colleges or universities voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Arizona is the only state that voted for President Joe Biden that does not require students to get vaccinated.
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