Bringing 9,000 students into a city like Waterford would not have been responsible given the recent number of Covid-19 cases.
That's according to President of Waterford Institute of Technology Willie Donnelly who said it was part of the reason the college have decided to hold the majority of their classes online.
Speaking on Déise Today with Damien Tiernan earlier, Donnelly said: "Waterford is very different to any other city in Ireland. 9,000 students represent about 15% of the population of the population of Waterford.
"You don't have that in Dublin, you don't have that in Limerick, you don't have that in Cork."
Donnelly said an outbreak would have been likely to happen, given the age demographic of the majority of cases in the country.
He said: "The reality is, the majority of students who would come back to Waterford for college, would be sharing accommodation within the city,
If you had an outbreak - which you would have- because that's the other thing the majority of cases now are among young people between 20 and 45.
Describing how the situation would have been likely to pan out if students returned to the campus he said: "Students come in, students are networking and moving around, they spread it within the institute themselves. Then what do students do (on a Friday) ? They go home and bring it home
"Or alternatively they go home, they catch the virus at home and bring it back into the college."
Speaking on Déise Today, Former Students Union President at WIT, Michael Murphy feels that although there were some questions answered today, students that have placements and labs have been somewhat left in the dark.
He said: "This [reverting to remote learning where possible] was probably the right call, it has been given due consideration but the clarity students are looking for around a number of different issues still hasn't been provided.
"There's still an awful lot of unanswered qs when it comes to students who need to go to placement, when it comes to labs questions like 'When are my labs', 'if i have labs, if I have am I expected to be here Monday and Tuesday, am I expected to be here on just Monday, or am going to be here Tuesday and Thurday?'.
"People still don't quite know if they need accommodation or not."
Last week WIT confirmed that all lectures, tutorial and practical classes will be delivered remotely for the coming academic year, however lab and workshops that require special equipment will take place on campus.
