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Education

Calls By College Students For Tuition Refunds Are Growing Louder (edsurge.com) 175

Long-time Slashdot reader jyosim writes: Students want their money back since their classes have moved online. Or they want partial refunds, and their calls have been getting louder. "Petition movements at more than 200 campuses are calling for partial refunds of tuition, typically asking for 50 percent back," reports EdSurge. "And some student protesters are now even filing class-action lawsuits to try to force colleges to return part of the tuition money."

Whether colleges should give back money depends on how you think about what colleges are selling. Is it a straight service like any other, so if students get less they should pay less? Is the most important thing simply getting into college, in which case the degree is the main thing, and students are still getting that? Or are colleges responsible for social mobility and helping students during this time by reducing tuition?

And is online education even worse than, say, sitting in the back of a large lecture hall with 300 students?

"I don't think we know enough about how much students were learning under the face-to-face model to calculate what an alleged loss might be under this new model," EdSurge is told by a University of Pennsylvania professor who studies higher education.

"He adds there has been a 'longstanding reluctance to try to figure out how much people learn,' and therefore 'it's quite difficult, if not impossible, to figure out what sort of drop off there might've been with the introduction of online.'"
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Calls By College Students For Tuition Refunds Are Growing Louder

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  • Options (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cygnusvis ( 6168614 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @08:48PM (#60068816)
    Option A: Get money back, no credits that semester. Option B: Keep credits for that semester, no money back..... I take B
    • Given the cost per year (US$70k) stated in the article to attend what look like mid-to-low ranked US institutions I'd take option A and go somewhere else. The costs they quoted are almost a factor of 10 higher than Canada. That's simply insane!

      While we do get support from the Provincial government to cover Canadian students if this went away we would still 4-5 times cheaper to attend (factoring in estimated residence costs) and that's for institutes with a significantly higher ranking than the two instit
      • Given the cost per year (US$70k) stated in the article to attend what look like mid-to-low ranked US institutions

        My daughter is currently attending the University of California, one of the best universities in the world.

        Her tuition is $10k per semester. Living expenses are about $5k per semester. So $30k per year at a top-ranked school.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          $90k for a 3 year course or $120k for a 4 year course is still completely insane.

        • That's actually really not bad in living expenses for a major California city. Semester is about 4 months, so 1250 a month. If that covers her accommodations and food she is pretty set actually. Insane amount of tuition though.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Loans for tuition should be paid back as a percentage of income, that way if the course turns out to be worthless the college is on the hook for not delivering value to the investor who backed the loan.

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        If you really want a good education, take three quarters of your degree at a Canadian regional college with a transfer program, then transfer to a university for the last year. The college has much cheaper tuition, instructors who are evaluated based on teaching ability, and very small classes.

        You miss out on the hobknobbing with the leaders of tomorrow though, so not so good for business or law.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Option C they make it up somehow, let them repeat the missed semester for free later.

      There also needs to be some kind of resolution for things like rent on student accommodation..

  • by will_die ( 586523 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @08:58PM (#60068830) Homepage
    Since a future employer is hiring with the idea that students got a certain level of education from the college. If students are saying they did not receive the education they expected to receive shouldn't transcripts indicate that parts of this year, and possibly next, were not taught at the normal level?
    • by bool2 ( 1782642 )
      "Since a future employer is hiring with the idea that students got a certain level of education from the college." Except that's not what most employers do. Instead they look for aptitude and ability in a more holistic sense. A degree is just one indicator of that.
    • Since a future employer is hiring with the idea that students got a certain level of education from the college.

      Future employers number 1 will look at the score a student got and the name of the college on top of the certificate. Future employers number 2 will look at who employer number 1 was.

      The idea that employers either assess or care about the "level" of education to the point where doing classes online vs having classes scheduled in person (I say scheduled as no employer has ever asked for my attendance record either), is just plainly absurd.

  • Group projects (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Way Smarter Than You ( 6157664 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @09:00PM (#60068834)
    One of the things my college was big on which was a useful and educational (although often painful) experience was group work. Learning to play well with others we didn't choose in some classes or to choose our partners wisely in others and in all cases learning to deal when someone dropped class or didn't pull their weight was just like real life.

    Lectures and discussions had other value than the lecture itself. Need to borrow notes? Find a study/fuck buddy? Way easier in person to strike up a conversation about class and get someone to share projects and do special home projects on the side.

    So called remote learning misses the whole point of college: learning to be an adult and deal with the real world in a place where some failure is ok. Silly taped videos entirely miss the point. They should shut down and refund or hold as credit to next quarter/semester. The kids are losing out in all sorts of hard to measure ways both purely academic and life experiences.
    • by Octorian ( 14086 )

      I did my master's degree almost entirely via distance learning. And yes, some classes actually did involve group projects. We just did it via Email and teleconferencing. (Of course everyone in the class was already in the "real world", so we were comfortable with all those things from work.)

    • "So called remote learning misses the whole point of college: learning to be an adult and deal with the real world-

      If your kids aren't already adults when they go to college then you've failed at your job. You shouldn't be expecting the school to finish raising them for you. They're already legal adults, or just on the cusp of being same, and you should have taught them what they need to know to be adults instead of sheltering them so much from reality that they don't know what it looks like.

      Hard job? Yeah.

  • by Stoutlimb ( 143245 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @09:06PM (#60068840)

    "He adds there has been a 'longstanding reluctance to try to figure out how much people learn"

    Have people not heard of FINAL EXAMS???

    • Also, "We can't calculate the value of the loss".... they didn't seem to have any problem calculating the tuition.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Exams don't measure how much someone learned over 3 or 4 years, they measure how good they are at taking exams..

    • by quetwo ( 1203948 )

      Final exams this semester were a shit-show to no end. Pretty much all the students were cheating to no end -- which forced a lot of instructors to make their exams even harder to compensate. I actually had a student connect with me and tell me they felt pressured to cheat because everybody else was, and it was throwing off the curve. Students would join large discord or facetime sessions and "group take" exams. Kids would post questions on sites like Chegg and Qulzlet.

      Pretty much, I don't know how much

  • by timholman ( 71886 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @09:11PM (#60068850)

    Universities can not refund tuition. They don't have the money. Every university is in a budget crisis right now. If you work for one, you know exactly what I'm talking about. This is a once-in-a-lifetime financial crisis outside of the experience of higher education.

    You could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of U.S. universities that have enough accessible cash on hand to refund a portion of last semester's tuition. Just reimbursing the remainder of dorm rent and meal plans has strained them to the limit. Nor can schools tap into their endowments like a giant bank account. That money can only provide an annual investment income that is already committed to other purposes.

    Universities operate just like most businesses or households - the money is spent just as fast as it comes in. There are almost no cash reserves. The fixed expenses of running the university haven't gone away. Do you wonder why most universities are now announcing that they'll open their campuses this fall? Because they've all realized they can't afford not to.

    Winning a lawsuit like this will be a Pyrrhic victory at best. The lawyers will take home millions. The students will get a "discount" on next semester's tuition that will quickly get swallowed up by tuition and fee increases needed to rebalance the school budget. The net result is that the students will indirectly pay the lawyers' share of the judgements without getting a dime of savings for their education.

    People need to let this go. Last semester was an aberration that won't be repeated. The students have still earned their credit hours, and that's what will matter in the long run.

    • by diseasesofseamen ( 816416 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @09:20PM (#60068876)
      Ditto. I'm a tenured professor at a fiscally trim state university with no athletics or dorms, and with some knowledge of the budget process. The state schools are already facing budget cuts from the state in the fall. Cutting into any of the revenue of the rather lean enrollment they may have in the fall will mean furloughs and layoffs, impacting the quality of instruction for all the students that do choose to keep paying and attending. It might be a clever short-term strategy to sue, take the discount and transfer to a cheaper school. But long-term, it's bad for everyone, especially if you plan to sue and stay at the same university. I've been ordering extra takeout from all the restaurants I normally attend in person. I don't want them to disappear. I want to go there in person again at some point. Same reasoning applies.
      • I'd add that the Ivy League might be able to eat the tuition of a semester. But the state schools can't, and the privates... well.
      • by Wycliffe ( 116160 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @11:20PM (#60069132) Homepage

        I'm a tenured professor at a fiscally trim state university.

        Cutting into any of the revenue of the rather lean enrollment they may have in the fall will mean furloughs and layoffs, impacting the quality of instruction for all the students that do choose to keep paying and attending.

        The school is under contract to provide the agreed upon classes. You as a tenured professor are under contract to teach those classes. If the classes are not being taught then the students need to be refunded and unfortunately you shouldn't be getting paid and should be getting unemployment like everyone else who can't work.

        • I agree that if the classes were not being taught then those credit hours need to be refunded. However if they were taught and did cover the material then I personally see no basis for a refund.
          Anyways, the main point is that universities are very different from small businesses. When there is a recession and employment picture shifts, many people choose to go to universities to up their skills or get that degree and to ultimately better compete in the job market. So universities are indeed a different worl

        • by Isaac-Lew ( 623 )
          IANAL, however when looking at a sample college enrollment contract ( https://www.heinz.cmu.edu/hein... [cmu.edu] ), I don't see where the school is obligated to provide in-person instruction - the contract is mostly about the school getting its $$$, and the consequences if they don't. The school could argue that online classes fulfill any specific or implied requirement that instruction be provided to the student.
      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The rest of the world is facing furloughs and layoffs right now.

        I get the impression that a lot of colleges don't actually understand what's going on. The small business loans that protect payroll, for example, require that companies only furlough 25% of their employees. In the private sector, we're fighting to save the jobs of 75% of the employees in a small percentage of the businesses. The rest will be gone.

        This idea that you can avoid furloughs and layoffs at your organization is insane. Comparing "extr

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by RyanFenton ( 230700 )

      This misses a very, VERY crucial thing, understood by most nations outside the US.

      Educational institutions aren't SUPPOSED to be profitable.

      Same with prisons.

      Same with hospitals.

      Forcing these things to act as if they have to operate on a profit perverts their very purpose, and often degrades their very functions very deeply.

      And in the end, it makes each of them far, FAR more expensive to society, and each citizen in terms of net expense over time.

      Ryan Fenton

      • The Academy in Athens was already a for profit organization, about 2300 years ago.
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Was ancient Athens a services based economy in need of highly skilled labour?

          Education is like infrastructure for a country. If you don't charge for roads you shouldn't charge for education either.

      • by JBMcB ( 73720 )

        This misses a very, VERY crucial thing, understood by most nations outside the US.

        Educational institutions aren't SUPPOSED to be profitable

        Most large US universities are registered as non-profits, so they don't earn profits by definition. They should, at the very least, be able to cover their operating expenses.

        There are for-profit universities as well. Some are pretty bad. Some are pretty good. I know two people who got their degrees from the University of Phoenix (one a bachelor's, one a masters) and were happy with the whole procedure.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by fulldecent ( 598482 )

      Cool story bro. But no.

      Services not delivered, money not paid.

      If money not available then go bankrupt or beg for money.

      Of course, it might be sad if schools go bankrupt, especially for teachers and unions. So I hope that you will support that the school will mortgage its real estate to other more responsible people that can provide cash to weather the storm. If that's not enough then the naming rights for buildings can also be mortgaged.

      (I'm writing this assuming we're talking about a large private school t

    • This. Wish I could up-vote this one.

      Tuition at a big university can easily push a billion dollars a year. There are universities with more than this in their endowments, but like he says, the money is usually locked up.

      The ivies could probably refund a semesters tuition, along with handful of really rich non-ivies. I bet it's more than 5, but still not a big number. It would take a bailout from Uncle Sam to make it happen across the board. As much sympathy as I have for college students, there are
    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Everything you say may be true except the last sentence:
      "The students have still earned their credit hours, and that's what will matter in the long run."
      Which made me want to say "Are you clear bonkers???". Credit hours are almost meaningless in any technical subject. You can't to Calculus 1B until you've mastered Calculus 1A, and getting credit for hours isn't worth jack shit in comparison.

      I suppose if you're doing Literature of History then you might have a valid argument, but even there I'm not sure.

    • Universities can not refund tuition. They don't have the money.

      Universities operate just like most businesses or households - the money is spent just as fast as it comes in. There are almost no cash reserves. The fixed expenses of running the university haven't gone away.

      The university was under contract to provide room, board, instruction, credits, etc.. to the student. If they don't provide what they promised, they need to refund the money. If the instructors are still teaching online and giving the students the opportunity to receive a similar instruction then that is a different story. But if the instructors are not teaching then they shouldn't be getting paid and that money needs to be returned to the student. If they closed the dorm then just like any other landlo

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Universities can not refund tuition. They don't have the money. Every university is in a budget crisis right now.

      They should agree to come clean about their budget and expenses in times like these, especially if they participate in federal student loans. If there's extra, then give refunds.

      And I don't think students should have to subsidized furloughed athletic instructors, for example. If it's a position not needed during the isolation, then exclude it from the calculations. It's unfortunate for those in

    • Universities can not refund tuition. They don't have the money. Every university is in a budget crisis right now. If you work for one, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

      My university has been good about pro-rating non-tuition fees. I got two months of my parking pass refunded. I don't know why they didn't just keep the money. They still need to maintain facilities even though they can't let people on campus. They're still granting credit for completed courses and issuing degrees. I see no reason for them to return tuition. I admit that I can afford to write off $75 without much concern, being a part-time grad student studying for the sake of it and not dependent on family,

    • Universities can not refund tuition. They don't have the money.

      Correct. The larger picture is this is an effort by lawyers to tap into government's infinitely deep pockets by prompting still more Congressional borrowing.

      The monstrous windfall to lawyers from lawsuits over this whole thing is just beginning. Don't get your hopes up Congress will do what it should: ban these lawsuits. Not when lawyers are a giant, politically-donating faction.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by samdu ( 114873 )

      That was my initial reaction, as well. But it apears they're talking specifically about tuition. And if it's just tuition, they're kind of getting what they paid for on that front.

  • If they lived on campus and paid for boarding, that should be refunded. All students should be refunded for the athletics fees and other fees related to campus life (typically called an "activity fee" or similar), as no one is on campus, and the athletic programs are presumably on hiatus. They are still getting an education and credits towards their degree. They should still pay for those credits.

  • If students are getting a European style (bare-bones) education, they should be paying European prices.
    • by bool2 ( 1782642 )
      No, European style education is not bare-bones, yet somehow our prices are much more competitive. Why is that?
      • No, European style education is not bare-bones, yet somehow our prices are much more competitive. Why is that?

        Because the federal government tries to 'help' by making more money available, by way of grants and low-interest, unbankruptle loans, which has enabled colleges to raise prices by the amount of the 'help.'
        The money available by this 'help' has increased at a rate far above inflation, so the cost of colleges has likewise increased. Sure, most of the colleges involved are 'non-profit', but the people running them still like high salaries, huge staffs, and fancy buildings.

        • Easy loans, pushed by politicians who want to bleat about college participation rates, and loaned by companies who know Congress will pick up the pieces if it collapses, as guarantors of the loans, or even if not in some cases, allowed this large increase to happen, year after year, for decades.

          Nobody wants to spend thousands extra for a silly car option, but a few tens of dollars a month more on a loan? Sign me up!

          • Congress could shut these increases down tomorrow by refusing to guarantee loans to students at any university that increases its fees beyond inflation, or inflation minus 0.2% for a few decades to renormalize costs.

      • by quetwo ( 1203948 )

        Because the country and state governments pay for most (if not all) of the cost to run those institutions. In the USA, a state college may get between 15-20% of their budget from the feds and state government, where it used to be in the 70-80% in the 70's. The cost to educate a student in the USA has remained at or below the cost of inflation BUT the amount the states have contributed have gone way down, and the way that schools have compensated for that loss are by increasing the student's portion of the

  • "I don't think we know enough about how much students were learning under the face-to-face model to calculate what an alleged loss might be under this new model," EdSurge is told by a University of Pennsylvania professor who studies higher education.

    I think the biggest thing here isn't whether or not they are learning more or less in virtual classrooms, but the students getting what they signed up for and purchased. There are plenty of universities out there that were doing both virtual classes and even full degree programs online before this whole thing started. And that is an acceptable method of learning, with plenty of students passing and graduating using that method.

    But if a student looks at their available options, and decides to go to a physica

    • But if a student looks at their available options, and decides to go to a physical campus for in-person classes, then they should be entitled to at least partial compensation or refund if they change the classes to virtual half way into the semester. For whatever reason (maybe they wanted the discipline of going to class, maybe they learn better with physical interactions instead of virtual, etc.), they decided to take physical classes instead of virtual. Just like any other good or service, if I'm not getting what I originally signed up for and was agreed to (in this case, a class taught in-person), then I expect to get a partial/full refund. The same should be true for education.

      If a student's professor changes mid semester, they generally don't expect a refund. As long as the education continues and is substantially the same then given the circumstances, I don't necessarily think they need a refund just because it switched formats. They should be given the option for an incomplete and the chance to retake the course later though. If the education stops or the dorms close then they definitely need a refund of what they did not receive.

  • by hambone142 ( 2551854 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @10:42PM (#60069030)

    I just paid tuition for my son's Summer and Fall semesters at CSU. They forced us to pay for a student health center (closed), student union fees (closed) and sports program (canceled) as part of the tuition.

    CSU needs to be sued to refund fees for services they have discontinued due to Covid-19 closures.

    Additionally, his physics class had almost all labs canceled after the end of March. They're doing a piss poor job teaching online also with some instructors just lobbing homework assignments to the students.

    It's unethical.

  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @10:43PM (#60069036)
    since this was just a business deal. But I wonder if they will get bitten by the small print so to speak?

    Just my 2 cents ;)
  • A major part of college is the life experience that being on campus provides. You meet people, make friends (many for life), develop teamwork skills, and mature outside of your parents basement.

    And, as others noted, you have labs, lectures, and interactions with and mentor ship by professors.

    Yes, you can learn online. But, itâ(TM)s not the same. And, you pay for housing that you no longer are receiving. There really is something to be said for the college experience.

    My middle child graduated from c

  • Then then should do an all around refund, not just the students that have loans.

    1) If your stupid enough to go to school and not do some planning to see how much you'll make at the end of school, then you probably shouldn't go to school. After you've lived on the planet for two decades, you should probably know enough to do your own planning. The government, or schools, or your parents shouldn't have to do this for you. You live with the consequences of where your money is spent and the way you spend your t

  • I am enrolled in a masters program at a university that actually charges more for online lecture than on-campus (resident) tuition. Since I live within walking distance of the university I could theoretically attend on campus. Should I now ask for a discount because they're giving these on campus students a discount for the online coursework? Sounds to me like these students should owe the university a check for the free upgrade.

  • by misnohmer ( 1636461 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @11:03PM (#60069090)

    You can't have it both ways, keep the credits and get your money back. If you claim you didn't learn as much as you should have, then you don't qualify to get the credit either. It's no different than dropping a class. Most schools have dates by which you can drop with full refund, other dates where you can drop for partial refund, and deadlines after which you get no refund.

    Of course if they are asking for refunds for dorm rooms they couldn't use, or meal plans for which they got no meals, or gym accesses or athletics fees, all those should be refunded since services were not rendered.

  • I like that the summary tries to pitch this as a discussion about "what are colleges really selling?" Are colleges selling knowledge that can be learned online or are colleges selling a network of people and series of experiences that create a fully functioning adult?

    Now we look at the comments, and it's clear that neither of those arguments matters. We've immediately devolved into accounting and budgeting. The purpose and expectations of education apparently don't matter.

    It makes you wonder whether many c

  • Offer students the choice for a free semester providing they resit precisely the classes they had this past semester, and accept that it will set them back graduating by 6 months. Let's see how many students take the university up on their offer.

  • Imagine if employers asked to pay 50% less wages for people working online from home.

  • My daughter's major has classes that require hands-on work and they are usually the most important classes of each semester. For spring semester she was given the option to take an incomplete and to come back and finish the hands-on work at a later time. She was not given the option for a refund but she should have. That class ended up being a sham of a class. A lot of the students in her major are discussing deferring the fall semester if it's online as it is a travesty to pay that kind of mine for subpar
  • If the class was mostly or entirely lecture and discussion, then it should be reasonable to complete delivery online and deliver a meaningful learning experience for the students. In that case I would say if the students want refunds then they should be accepting "withdrawn" as their grades for the semester (no credit, but not marked as a failure either).

    However if the class had a large lab component to it - especially labs that require equipment and safety measures that you cannot reasonably expect a student to have access to at home - then the universities should either be offering refunds for those courses or giving the students ways to complete them later at no additional cost.

    Instead we're seeing - and possibly due to just poor coverage of the matter through the media - news of students who are shouting for refunds. A lot of students had courses interrupted that seriously threw off their academic and career plans, something meaningful should be done to help them. You can complete a math, history, literature, and many other types of courses online and at home. You can't reasonably do molecular biology, high energy physics, physical chemistry, and the like at home.

The unfacts, did we have them, are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude.

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