[totalZero]

I don't think that your analysis is coherent given the demographics of the political divide. The GOP has more support among high-income Americans than the DNC, and that support increases as you go further up the line. Rich people tend to send their children to universities. It doesn't serve them to destabilize or collapse the higher education system.

I think the larger weakness in your line of argument is that whatever happens to students will have externalities that reverberate beyond universities themselves. Students who are not in school will probably live at home, reifying the pandemic in the minds of their parents. They may question their tuition, creating a quagmire for universities that suddenly have to explain the high price of education via glorified webinars. They may choose to take time off and compete for jobs in the labor market.

It would be somewhat demoralizing for a middle-class family to be unable to send a college student back to school.