Absolutely communal living can but so does sending 30K students out into the U.S. all at once X that by however many Universities are doing this and these students are going to be taking transit like planes, trains, being in a car would help reduce but isn't feasible for all. Instead of having a more limited area you now have spread all those people out, some of which may be carriers and not be symptomatic. Some of these places asking the landlords for off campus students to implore the students to go to their parents. My apartment when I was living in one while in college was my home...
I'm 100% for remote learning. I'm just not for closing the school and kicking everyone out and having them go to their parents. My alma mater is going remote but leaving the campus open, dorm halls open and dining halls open, for now at least. Should they opt to close it all up I would have the same opinion especially as my alma mater has a decent amount of students that come from my metro.
There are ways to limit exposures even in communal living such as in dining halls switching or at least giving the options to have brown bag style meals (we had that when I was in college and I used it a lot when I was working and couldn't make it to the dining hall for dinner) and limiting the given number of people within the dining halls, some students will likely choose the brown bag style in the interest of not being surrounded by everyone, you can limit gatherings in the dorms halls in the common area. The city/town the college is in can have their rules on the number of people in a given area at a time.
Closing campus, kicking everyone out and sending everyone to the four corners of the U.S. is an extreme reaction one that I think just swaps one problem with another. Hopefully it helps but there's a very real possibility that one of the students who is being sent home is a carrier who has now infected other people in their parent's area, who now spreads to their community, etc. Will that happen? No one can predict but it is a possibility.
I totally agree spring break is a factor. Timing is something I've mentioned in multiple threads. It's a double edged sword as it's a high travel time.
I don't think any University made any decision lightly either. In the interest though of flattening the curve some entities I think got tunnel vision on what that means-purely my opinion though.
