With no students, small college town worries over future

What happens to a college town when the students disappear? Ithaca, a small upstate New York city nearby gorges and vineyards, is finding out.

Most of the 24,000 students at Cornell University and 6,200 more from Ithaca College effectively vanished in March when the coronavirus pandemic struck, leaving behind struggling restaurants and shops. Locals still reeling from the outbreak and resulting exodus are wondering when — or if — things will get back to normal.

“It’s going to be hard. I mean, normally we have about seven months that the colleges are here,” said Gregar Brous, who runs the local Collegetown Bagels shops, other restaurants and a catering operation. He has brought back just over 100 of the 330 employees he laid off, but the long-term fate of college-dependent businesses remain cloudy.

“One of the biggest challenges right now is so many unknowns," Brous said.

Ithaca College intends to bring students back this fall, but weeks later than normal on Oct. 5. Cornell — the Ivy League school that dominates this city of 31,000 — is offering its summer courses online and expected to release its plans for the fall semester soon.

Even if Cornell opts for a return to in-class instruction as locals expect, they're concerned about returning students holing up on campus more, or an autumn surge in COVID-19 cases sparking another sudden exit. Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick said possible international travel restrictions could affect Cornell, where almost a quarter of the students come from other countries.

“If people don’t feel comfortable sending their children across the country or across the world back to our campuses, then we’ll start to shed jobs,” said Myrick.

Cornell students spend an estimated $225 million annually, helping fuel a healthy...