They are relatively unlikely to _die_ from COVID-19 (and please do not repeat the false claim that these are only “people already on the cusp of death” - the average victim is losing at least a decade of life based on actuarial data) but we know that there are a much greater percentage of people who will experience significant health problems, potentially with life-long impacts.

Similarly, not everyone on or near campus is a health 19 year old and not every college student can afford to live in their own apartment or with a few healthy roommates. Universities have large numbers of staff of all ages, and no college town functions without a similar all-ages mix of people living near those students. The entire reason why there's so much pressure to re-open is because the lack of federal support means that city and state governments (at least 30 of the states have recent laws preventing them from running a budget deficit during a crisis) are desperate for the revenue generated by those students, and that is another way of saying that lots of people are literally banking on having those students be in contact with a fair chunk of the local economy.