I can't open a word document

I recently downloaded the newest version of Catalina on my MacBook Air. I have some online classes that I have downloaded word documents from in the past with no problem, but ever since I updated my computer, when I try to download a word document from my school's website, it wants to open in Safari and if I click on that, it takes me to my student portal log in page. If I log in, that's it. Nothing happens. I tried uninstalling Microsoft and reinstalling it, but that doesn't work. I can open my own word documents that I've saved to my own computer and to my cloud drive, but I can't open any other documents. I don't know what else to try.