Coronavirus: Students sue colleges over tuition, fees amid COVID-19 pandemic distance learning

Students should have been on their college campuses for the past two months, but instead, they’ve been at home waiting to find out if or when they will go back.

Students at 25 universities are suing their schools for a partial refund of the fees they’ve paid for tuition and other services they are not using, The Associated Press reported.

The students said they’re not getting the education they were promised.

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But the schools said no, given that the students are still taking classes, albeit remotely, from the same professors and they’re still earning their credits.

Students, however, said it is not enough.

Grainger Rickenbacker, a freshman at Drexel University, told the AP that online classes are poor substitutions.

Rickenbacker has filed a class-action lawsuit against the university.

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He’s not alone.

Another student at the University of California said some professors are only uploading assignments with no video instruction, the AP reported.

A Purdue University senior engineering student has filed suit saying the coronavirus closure has prevented him from completing his senior project which was to build an airplane.

A parent of a George Washington Unversity student is suing the school saying it should refund tuition, housing and the fees associated with education. The total, according to legal documents, is in the tens of thousands of dollars, the AP reported.

Schools said the suits do not hold merit because they are still providing an education.

Ken McConnellogue from the University of Colorado, told the AP the lawsuits are from a small group of “opportunistic” law firms. McConnellogue said that while the education being provided is different and that the school would like to have students be on campus, it can’t happen because of the global pandemic.

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Michigan State said the university faced increased costs from moving classes online.

But lawyers said the refunds are fair.

“You cannot keep money for services and access if you aren’t actually providing it," Roy Willey of Anastopoulo Law Firm told the AP.

Last month, students at Columbia University, Pace University and Long Island University sued the schools trying to get some of their money back, CNN reported.

They said not only are the students not getting the expected interaction with their professors, but they also have lost access to campus buildings, housing and meals and are asking the schools to adjust the cost accordingly, CNN reported.

Columbia University said that it would refund some of the room, board facility and student life fees but as long as instruction continued virtually, the tuition cost would not be returned, according to CNN.

Students cited the costs for a degree for in-person instruction and the same degree that is normally also offered online. For in-person instruction, a social work undergrad degree costs $58,612. Online the same degree costs $48,780, CNN reported.

One student did receive a partial refund of mandatory fees he paid to Columbia. Of the $1,065 he paid, the university returned $119, CNN reported.

For more on the lawsuits, click here.