UT Austin projects more than 75% of class seats will be online this fall

AUSTIN, Texas - The University of Texas at Austin says that more than 75 percent of class seats this fall will be online. The university says that students and faculty selected online courses as their preferred option when registering for fall semester courses.

“Given the current state of COVID-19 in Texas, and its future unpredictability, this broad reduction in population density will help us stay safe, maintain social distance and limit spread on the Forty Acres in the months to come,” interim President Jay Hartzell said in a letter to the campus Tuesday.

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The university said almost 50 percent of undergraduates chose to attend fully online classes, with the other half choosing to take a majority of hybrid and online classes.

Due to how students are splitting their time between online and in-person courses, this means more than 75 percent of the class seats this fall are online with only five percent being fully in person. The remaining 20 percent will be in hybrid classes that mix online and in-person elements.

The university says that over 60% of UT faculty members will teach online-only this semester and the number of staff members will be dramatically reduced as those who can work remotely have been encouraged to do so in coordination with their supervisors.

UT Austin also says that there has been a substantial reduction in the number of undergraduates living in on-campus housing. About 62 percent, or 4,500 students out of a capacity of 7,300, will be living on campus.

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Here are the preliminary course registration numbers as of August 4 according to UT Austin:

Total Student Credit Hours by Instruction Mode

Online: 491,571 (76.5%)
Hybrid: 108,981 (17.0%)
In-Person: 41,472 (6.5%)

Seats Taken (unique registrations in a class)

Online: 172,689 (76.6%)
Hybrid: 40,739 (18.1%)
In-Person: 12,041 (5.3%)

Sections by Instruction Mode

Online: 7,035 (60.7%)
Hybrid: 2,733 (23.6%)
In-Person: 1,818 (15.7%)

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UT requests students quarantine before returning to campus

There’s only about one month to go before the university welcomes some students back for the fall semester. Still, concerns over how to keep COVID-19 from spreading have yet to go away. 

UT Austin says these numbers are subject to change during the add/drop period, which begins on August 21, but are not expected to change dramatically. Final numbers will be available with full enrollment data sometime after the 12th day of classes.