All students, faculty and staff at Pace University will need a COVID-19 booster shot to return to campus in January for the spring semester.

This announcement comes one day after the college raised its COVID-19 alert and moved most finals and all activities online to end the year.

School officials say the rise in cases around the region is putting a strain on the school's ability to isolate COVID-positive students on campus.

Pace's Pleasantville campus is reporting a COVID-19 positive test rate above 7% and its Manhattan campus is around 3%.

Students say they're frustrated.

"People were not doing their part so that's why we're in the situation we're at now," says Pace University senior Kat Blake.

The school is encouraging people to begin the first two weeks after the holiday break remotely but plans to return to normal operations by Jan. 18.