Two prominent liberal arts colleges–Bowdoin and Middlebury– announced their reopening plans for the fall 2020 semester amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Bowdoin College in Maine is only having first-year and transfer students report. The other students will participate in online learning.

Middlebury College in Vermont conversely announced that the school invites all 2,750 students to return in the fall, with a hybrid of online and in-person courses.

This Inside Higher Ed article explains how the colleges came to their vastly different decisions.