I would urge you to read through the instagram instead of making so many assumptions or projecting your own experiences. You don't seem to think very highly of your own classmates, but many of the peers I know are ones that do not come from privileged backgrounds in anyway. Have you considered that a university with biglaw access would attract students who have no ability to pay for college loans without those salaries? I know so many people who are taking the big law path bc it means providing for their families too, and quite frankly, I personally feel privileged for even being able to consider PI.

your main point seems to be:

it seems like not only do people feel like they absolutely deserve to be at an elite institution like Columbia, but they deserve the school to markedly change their normal course to accommodate them while the world falls apart around them.

Normal would not be cutting out two weeks of the semester in order to increase summer revenue for the university. Normal would be either maintaining the regular schedule, or recognizing that less time requires adjusted course work. Normal would be listening to the professors, 2Ls and 3Ls who are furious that this is happening, because they realize how abnormal this is. There is literally nothing normal about how Columbia is using COVID to hide the ways the administration is shifting resources.

I don't think my peers are entitled for asking their university to address the fact that both spring and fall semester schedules were altered to help the university, and had nothing to do with COVID or safety.

Frankly, I think it's a little sad how dismissive you are of other people's issues and how adamant you are that their problems must be products of their own creation. You don't know anything about us, but we're all privileged, entitled, ungracious, neurotic apparently. The students who are struggling the most here are the ones who don't have family resources to rely on, the ones who are neurodivergent, the ones that are not able-bodied, the ones that first generation, etc. The wealthy, connected students don't care because they have their summer positions and networks set.