Columbia, Brown, Cornell among 26 US varsities sued as classes on the web fail to impress

Higher education in america is expensive and has resulted in crippling financial debt for a lot of youngsters-so much so that one of the main campaign promises of the erstwhile presidential election prospect Bernie Sanders was to waive student loans. So, when students who've paid a bomb for the famed campus experience at premier universities were sent home to learn online through the coronavirus pandemic, they didn't feel they got their money's worth.

Now, students at a lot more than 25 US universities are filing lawsuits against their schools demanding partial refunds on tuition and campus fees, saying they’re not obtaining the calibre of education these were promised.

The suits say students should pay lower rates for the portion of the word that was offered online, arguing that the grade of instruction is far below the classroom experience.

Colleges, though, reject the theory that refunds are in order. Students are learning from the same professors who teach on campus, officials have said, and they’re still earning credits toward their degrees. 

Grainger Rickenbaker, 21, who filed a class-action lawsuit against Drexel University in Philadelphia, said there's little interaction with students or professors and some classes are being taught almost entirely through recorded videos, without live lecture or discussion.

Other students report similar experience elsewhere. A complaint against the University of California, Berkeley, says some professors are simply just uploading assignments, without video instruction at all. A case against Vanderbilt University says class discussion has been stymied and the “quality and academic rigor of courses has drastically decreased.”

In a case against Purdue University, a senior engineering student said the closure has prevented him from finishing his senior project, building an airplane. “No online course can simulate the applicable, real-world experience” he hoped to get from the project, the complaint says.

Class-action lawsuits demanding tuition refunds have already been filed against at least 26 colleges, targeting prestigious private universities, including Brown, Columbia and Cornell, along with big public schools, including Michigan State, Purdue and the University of Colorado, Boulder.

A number of the suits draw focus on schools’ large financial reserves, saying colleges are unfairly withholding refunds whilst they rest on endowments that often surpass USD 1 billion.

Several colleges declined to touch upon the lawsuits, however, many said students have continued to get what they payed for.

Ken McConnellogue, a spokesman for the University of Colorado, said it’s disappointing that persons have already been so quick to file lawsuits only weeks in to the pandemic. He said the suits appear to be driven by a tiny number of “opportunistic” lawyers.

Lawyers representing students, however, say the refunds certainly are a matter of fairness.

“You cannot keep money for services and access if you aren’t actually providing it,” said Roy Willey, a legal professional for the Anastopoulo Law Firm in SC, which is representing students in greater than a dozen cases. “If we’re truly going to be all in this together, the universities have to tighten their belts and refund the amount of money back again to students and families who actually need it.”

Willey said his office has received a huge selection of inquiries from students looking to file suits, and his firm is looking into a large number of possible cases. Other firms dealing with similar cases say they’re also seeing a wave of demand from students and parents who say they deserve refunds.

Along with tuition, the cases also seek refunds for fees that students paid to access gyms, libraries, labs and other buildings that are actually closed. All told, the complaints seek refunds that could soon add up to thousands of dollars per student at some schools.

Scores of schools have returned portions of housing and dining fees, but few if any have decided to return any share of tuition.

At the University of Chicago, a huge selection of students signed a letter saying they will won't pay this term’s tuition, that was due April 29, unless the institution reduces tuition by 50% and keeps it at that level through the crisis.

The lawsuits ask courts to answer a thorny question that has come to the fore as universities shift classes online: whether there’s a notable difference in value between online instruction and the original classroom.

Willey adds that colleges themselves often charge lower rates for classes on the web, which he says is a reflection of their value.