Some college students may not be able to return to campus until 2021 as universities weigh the possibility of extending coronavirus closures through the fall semester.

At Boston University, “all in-person classes and other academic activities” have already been canceled during the summer term. Remote classes will take place, and “minimal housing and dining services” will be available.

The goal is to re-open for classes in the fall, but the university is prepared for the possibility that it may not happen, it said in an online statement.

“The Recovery Plan recognizes that if, in the unlikely event that public health officials deem it unsafe to open in the fall of 2020, then the University’s contingency plan envisions the need to consider a later in-person return, perhaps in January 2021,” the university said.

At nearby Harvard University — one of the first institutions to send students home amid the outbreak — officials are weighing “lots of different scenarios” for the fall semester, President Lawrence S. Bacow told the student newspaper.

The university is “focused on the fall,” he said, but added that by the time decisions have to be made about enrollment and teaching, “there will still be a tremendous amount of uncertainty.”

It’s also unclear what the fall semester will hold at the University of Arizona.

“We are cautiously optimistic that the fall semester will be able to launch with the normal face-to-face campus experience, but of course we will prioritize the health and well-being of our community in making that decision,” the university said in a statement to the Arizona Daily Star.

A fall return date is also uncertain at Oregon State University, spokesman Steve Clark told The Oregonian.

“Only the novel coronavirus will determine what happens,” Clark said. “We can hope for a full return in fall 2020, but hope is not a strategy. So that is why we are going to prepare as best we can for every possible contingency.”

Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and visiting scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told CNN that it’s wise of colleges to plan ahead.

“I think colleges should all definitely make plans for delaying start dates and for intermittent closings and reopenings, because epidemiology modeling suggests we may have to go into open and close waves until potentially even 2022,” he said.

Researchers with the Chan school said Tuesday that some degree of social distancing may still be needed in the US until 2022 to prevent large outbreaks of coronavirus.

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