Posted on 03/14/2020 6:12:31 AM PDT by justiceseeker93
With the issue of excessive college tuition on the front burner for decades, many colleges and universities have compounded the problem by arbitrarily shutting their doors in the past week or so, purportedly as a countermeasure to the coronavirus "pandemic." This is occurring without any evidence of coronavirus on campus.
Seems like students and/or their parents or other benefactors who have already paid their tuition and/or room/board for the current semester/trimester/quarter are being unilaterally ripped off here, with no compensation in sight.
The question I'm posing here is: Should there be a strident demand for pro-rated refunds from the colleges, and/or civil suits against the schools if the tuition payers aren't made whole?
Yes.
At my nephew’s college, they’re giving a partial refund if you completely check out of the dorm now. Only three weeks left, so he has the option to commute. Inconvenient, yes, but doable.
To date, quality/effectiveness of education hasn’t been very important to those paying tuition.
Maybe this will be a good catalyst.
This will be a big issue going forward, and I bet the government gets involved, generously.
I’d like to point out that the prorated cost—amount of term used/not used—isn’t the entire cost to the payor or the student. Credits are granted for completion of courses, usually upon the demonstration of some competence, such as grading on an exam, project, or paper. If a course is interrupted in the middle, how can it be finished? Does it have to be completely retaken? Will working via computer from home provide enough education? It’s going to get complicated, with different answers for different areas of study.
You will lose -force majeure.
In an ideal world these politicians and media members would pay dearly fir the economic nightmare that is about to be unleashed around the globe by this insane panic. But they will just move in to the panic over the worldwide depression they helped create..
No, they are acting prudent, my wife is a teacher, one of her co-workers has the virus, they have closed the school for two weeks. Do you feel they should force the school to expose your child to the virus? Here at TCU I understand they are going to do the rest of the semester all on line.
All the schools I know of are continuing the semester via digital means for at least the next few weeks. So, the tuition dollars continue to pay for what they’re supposed to buy. Fees for room and board seem like another matter.
I don’t think you would win. They are acting in best interest of the public, students, staff. I think this would be supported by the government, medical community, and the court.
It would however be good public relations to give even modest refunds.
Here at TCU I understand they are going to do the rest of the semester all on line.
+++++
As is UCLA and I’m sure most other universities.
And wisely so.
Absolutely. I intend to demand that I be fully refunded the tuition, fees, dorm rental, and meal ticket. There is no way that my daughter will get what I paid for this semester.
Any classes that require hands on work like labs and technical schools cannot be adequately completed. My daughter is training to be a master woodworker. There is no way she can do her projects at home.
My grandson was on spring break when notified by Lehigh the semester would be held on line. Aside from the qualitative loss of student interaction and campus life, he has fully paid room and board that the school is now saving. To me that should be proportionally refunded for that cost at least.
My Son is requesting same. $35,000 a semester for on line courses seems way over priced.
College is a leftist scam.
But you forget about labs and technical classes. There are many courses that cannot be done by watching a video.
Ping!!!
Trudeau is ignoring this stuff.
Have you read JKyleBass before? Kyle Bass
https://twitter.com/Jkylebass/status/1221065421874397185
Friends are getting a pro-rated refund on their kid’s housing and meal package.
Of course she needs to complete the lab to lean the skill.
The question is, will she be able to take a half-course in the summer or fall to complete this term’s work? That might work for woodworking. But, a half-course might not work for a biochem lab.
It’s going to be tricky.
OTOH, for soft “xxx-studies” courses which are a societal waste, there will be no problem. Hand in a pseudo-paper, and all will be well.
My university has just made its most recent move though it is rapidly changing. All classes moved to remote learning. Students need to be gone by sometime this week. Plan is to finish the term remotely. Room and board being prorated. I suppose if you have an off-campus lease you are out of luck. My lab course is using videos of the techniques and providing data then normal reports due electronically. Online lectures are a pain but doable. Exam security may well be a joke.
Any college with the bandwidth will do all they can to complete the semester. Major consequences to university finances and also the status of student loans as well as the ability to make degree progress and graduate on schedule.
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