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Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

212 points by hhs 6y ago

easterncalculus 6y ago
Refunds are a pretty hard thing for universities to do though, in a lot of cases the money has already been spent. If the question is how much they charge for next semester (assuming closure or mostly online learning) then I think there's a stronger argument to not charge students as much. The student perspective is basically that you're already paying so much, that the least the university can do is do good on what's being paid for or in the event where that is not possible, simply don't charge for what's not going to happen in the fall.
- graeme 6y ago
  This has no bearing on legal liability. If a business doesn’t provide the promised service “we spent your money already” is no defense. Doesn’t mean universities lose the case, but whether or not they spent the money is irrelevant.
  - easterncalculus 6y ago
    What does have legal liability is an act of god clause. If any sort of language like that is in whatever's being signed this situation certainly qualifies.
    - LanceH 6y ago
      A force majeure contract absolves them of delivering their service. It doesn't mean they get to change their service however they see fit and keep all the money. People up front for an in person semester. If they really want to go the force majeure route, they should return the money up front and renegotiate the rest of the semester.
      - usaar333 6y ago
        Sure, they can return some money but who knows how much was already allocated, especially with distance learning continuing. I got no refund from my kid's preschool for similar reasons. This is a really uphill legal battle
        LanceH 6y ago
        Then they can file bankruptcy and students can stand in line as creditors. "I already spent it" isn't a legal defense for taking money and not delivering services.
        usaar333 6y ago
        Except it really is when it comes to Force Majeur.
        graeme 6y ago
        Really? If you have a source, I’m interested. I figured the event itself was the consequential part, not whether the money was spent. Also not sure the OP Meant it literally. University expenses are mostly fixed.
- michaelt 6y ago
  > in a lot of cases the money has already been spent Then they can take out loans or go bankrupt. I mean, if you paid for a Ferrari and the car dealer can only give you a Corolla, they owe you a refund - irrespective of how big their rent and salary bills may be.
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    If they were forced to choose between going bankrupt and having traditional in-person classes, they would be offering in-person classes right now and allowing people to “opt-out” to the remote version. These companies aren’t arbitrarily choosing to educate people remotely. They’re adapting to the situation. Likewise, it would be unreasonable for employers to cut people’s compensation for working remotely under the assumption that remote work is less efficient and therefore the company deserves a refund.
    - gowld 6y ago
      Salary is governed by contract. People get pay cuts all the time.
    - klmadfejno 6y ago
      > These companies aren’t arbitrarily choosing to educate people remotely. They’re adapting to the situation. That doesn't really matter though. Like, it sucks, but they're giving a much shittier product and charging full price. Your example about people being less productive is not relevant because there's no doubt that the quality of education is much worse.
      - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
        Do you feel the same way about engineers working remotely? Is someone working remotely and communicating over Zoom delivering significantly lower quality work and therefore deserving of a lower compensation? Your assumption that there’s “no doubt” about the quality of education being worse is not a good assumption. Educators are working overtime to make the most of the remote learning situation.
- andreilys 6y ago
  Sure and and in some cases these universities have multi-billion dollar endowments. These universities operate more like hedge funds that offer education on the side.
LanceH 6y ago
I think the offshoot of this will be that student/university contracts are about to become massive one sided EULA's with all liability on the student side.
acomjean 6y ago
I was taking a class that transitioned online. (University extension school, biostatistics). So the networking and campus related activities don't relate to me. At the extension school, some classes were taught online already (this one was in person only). I felt the teaching staff made a pretty huge effort to get things online and running well. I'm sure they weren't getting paid more to make the transition. There was a general feeling of, this sucks but lets through it. It was a lot more work for faculty and students (It takes longer to learn material remotely, at least for me..). I don't think diplomas will have asterix next to them, saying "finished online", like the article indicates. Going forward, what tuition is going to be if classes are online in the fall is another issue. I'm guessing universities will charge what they can.
- elwes5 6y ago
  My guess the tuition will be similar in price. However, if it were me going to college at this time I would seriously consider skipping a year/semester if they did that. Get a small time job somewhere and help get ahead of the loans I already racked up. But that is just me. It became crystal clear to me a few years ago that these schools had gone off the rails price wise. My wife was taking 1 class. The book was more than the class and the previous semester you could not buy used. Ironically the class was micro economics.
  - Cldfire 6y ago
    I would love the option to be able to skip a semester or two of college, but unfortunately if I made that choice I'd lose all of my scholarships and it would end up costing me more than whatever I'd make in the meantime :(
ben7799 6y ago
This is just the straw that is popping the college bubble. My Alma mater has 15 administrators who make 2-3x more than the President did when I graduated. The President makes $5 million+. The VP/Dean of HR makes > $1 million. Administrators took a 5% pay cut. Lots of professors are furloughed or laid off. The school did all kinds of shenanigans to hang onto as much tuition/board/food money as they could. Students are not getting what they paid for, so of course they are suing. It's the same story as every other industry in the US.. the administrators/executives trying to rob everyone blind while they can. Alumni have been furious for years now, this isn't helping.
- moneywoes 6y ago
  Is it private or public
  - whyhow 6y ago
    It's probably public since he knows their salaries. you can get a hold of most college employee salaries through state ran databases.
    - jhart99 6y ago
      You can also pull salaries of key personnel for non-profits from their tax forms which covers manu(most) private universities.
- vmchale 6y ago
  If anything the pandemic seems to have made people less patient with self-justifying administrators. I don't think this can continue. Professors/teachers add value for students, you can't cut them indefinitely when they are now so much of the reason that the online college experience has value.
  - jdkee 6y ago
    In the telecom industry we had an adage, “Always cut staff before line.” Staff were overhead but line produced revenue. The same applies to teaching but it is not in the self-interest of administrators to cut staff. They will soon find out the truth.
paulcole 6y ago
Investors should step in and pay the kids off (since these lawsuits are either guaranteed losers or will take years to settle). Then in exchange take a % of their future earnings. Vary the % and timeline based on the degree they're seeking.
- ouid 6y ago
  This is indentured servitude, and expressly forbidden in the United States.
  - klmadfejno 6y ago
    This is not indentured servitude and such agreements are actively used today. (Though it is still a terrible solution)
  - barry-cotter 6y ago
    No it isn’t. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_share_agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_share_agreement > An income share agreement (or ISA) is a financial structure in which an individual or organization provides something of value (often a fixed amount of money) to a recipient who, in exchange, agrees to pay back a percentage of their income for a fixed number of years. ... > Common Concerns Indentured Servitude > However, advocates of ISAs contend that since students have no legal obligation to work in a particular industry, and since it is illegal for investors to pressure them into a certain career, students are no more “indentured” than those with a student loan. In fact, someone with a traditional student loan has less choice than someone with an ISA, because the student with a loan needs to be in a career where they make at least enough income to cover their monthly payment, whereas someone with an ISA can choose to never make any money, and would never owe the investor a dime.
    - dragandj 6y ago
      Someone who does not make any money doesn't need to care about student loans either. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the debt collectors can only collect what exists. They can't force you into the debtors prison. As long as you don't have anything, you don't have to worry about anyone coming after you (in the USA).
cg505 6y ago
> "In my personal opinion, I can deliver the same quality of education online as I could in person." Although this statement is debatable to begin with, it also misses a huge point. Even if the quality of an online education is the same, many students cannot learn as anywhere near as well in that environment. They paid tens of thousands of dollars for in-person learning, so for that to be replaced with something entirely different in form really sucks.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  As the article stated, many of these universities did give partial refunds. The students are demanding even more refunds while still collecting the education. I’m curious: Would you consider the same argument valid for workers forced to work remotely? Would you be upset if a company decided to cut workers’ pay in half during COVID19 remote work under the assumption that some workers can’t be as efficient remotely? After all, the company paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for in-person work, but now they’re getting potentially worse remote work.
  - ksaun 6y ago
    > As the article stated, many of these universities did give partial refunds. The students are demanding even more refunds while still collecting the education. To be clear, the article doesn't state that partial refunds of tuition have been offered, but that "many did offer partial refunds of dorm and activities fees."
jkingsbery 6y ago
I don't know about the legal question, but I think universities are setting themselves up for pain by arguing that the online experience they've been offering isn't substantially different from the in-person experience they had been offering. It's easy to imagine people calling their bluff on this, choosing to do remote learning even after COVID-19 goes away if it will save $100k+ over 4 years, and a subsequent contraction in the number of universities we need to educate people.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  Universities are not arguing this. If you read the article, you’ll see that the universities in question have already, voluntarily, given partial refunds to students prior to these lawsuits. The lawsuits are demanding even more refunds while the students still want to collect the remote education. If the Universities were faced with this decision up front, it would have been better for them to furlough all employees and simply delay education until after Coronavirus. Instead, they made the best of the situation and tried to do right by the students as best they could within the financial, legal, and ethical constraints of Coronavirus. In my opinion, it’s not reasonable to demand universities operate at a loss to provide the remote education at a rate less than it costs them to operate (which I suspect may be happening already in some cases). We’re all making compromises under the circumstances. I’d be more sympathetic if these students were requesting to defer their education until after Coronavirus and were willing to forgo all education and credits in the mean time. Demanding both the education and a refund isn’t exactly fair.
  - wtvanhest 6y ago
    Your opinion is reasonable from a contractual standpoint, but, contracts aren’t all that matters. Universities have a variety of tools they use to lock-in students. If the universities gave students the ability to take the semester off and get a refund before it started your argument would be strengthened. Most universities did not offer that option (if any). When you build an org with a massive cost structure, you cannot survive big risks. We are seeing it playout in a number of markets, but education is about to be changed forever
  - 6y ago
jawns 6y ago
The reason there is such a large premium for on-campus education versus online universities is because on-campus education is an experience as much as it is a service. If you're only interested in mastering the content, then online learning may be the place for you. That's why we see so many people pursuing online courses for their master's degrees and when they return to school later in life. They just want the content; they don't need (or have time for) the on-campus experience aspect of college. The on-campus college experience encompasses so much more than just acquiring knowledge based on what's taught in class. It's dorm life, it's extracurriculars, it's meeting people and forming friendships and hanging out with them outside of class time. It's being in a place where there are so many interesting people to meet. It's being in a relatively forgiving environment where practically everyone is figuring out how to live on their own (or with roommates) for the first time. Being physically present in that environment is a key draw. For me, the VAST majority of the value I got out of my on-campus education was the stuff that happened outside of class time. And I'm not even talking about the friendships or the networking or the fun. I'm talking about my actual education. For instance, I learned a lot more about journalism by working for the campus newspaper than from classroom instruction. And I don't think that atmosphere or energy can be easily recreated virtually. I say that, by the way, as a remote worker who has had to spend a lot of time convincing managers and higher-ups that yes, remote workers can be as productive and energized as in-office workers. Remote workers are generally happier when they're not looking to their job to supply all of their social needs. But an on-campus experience is much more all-encompassing in terms of what needs and desires it fulfills for post-adolescents.
- chii 6y ago
  > It's dorm life, it's extracurriculars, it's meeting people and forming friendships and hanging out with them outside of class time. that's a community. You shouldn't have to need to pay to be part of a community. By gating this behind an expensive college tuition fee, it causes separation in society and is a cause for the inequalities of opportunities in the world. IMHO, tertiary education should be "free" (that is, a loan which is almost zero interest, and only needs to be paid back when earning above some "high" tax rate).
  - 6y ago
andygcook 6y ago
It's interesting that the short term solution of not giving refunds will likely cause long-term pain for universities because they are then admitting that remote is "the same as" in person. Most of the university value is in the experience. I'd predict that if colleges don't admit in person > online and don't offer refunds, then many students will decide to save the $150K over four years and just take online courses, then live in an interesting city to get that life/social experience.
rb808 6y ago
Colleges should just open up. Young students are low risk that they're unlikely to be very sick if/when they contract disease. There will be some old or unhealthy staff members that can be protected. California and NY have stronger lock down rules, but people should just transfer to Texas, Florida places that are more open.
- alistairSH 6y ago
  While true that younger people are less at risk than older people, that risk is non-zero and significant. You also ignore that students don't isolate themselves within the walls of the college. They are a part of that community, using dining and retail facilities, traveling home, visiting nearby cities, etc. That puts their parents and families at risk, locals at risk, etc.
  - mennis16 6y ago
    Not to mention the majority of professors would be considered at least moderate risk. Maybe I just had a particularly good experience but I got to interact with a number of profs quite a bit during undergrad. Paying for in-person with only a bunch of TAs just wouldn't be worth it IMO, plus things like campus events would also have to be limited. It would take most of the benefits of the college experience out of the picture. I think gap year is the way to go for anyone that can make it work, regardless of whether the schools try to do online only or make accomodations for in-person.
A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
Anecdata from my little corner. My 'non-profit' university's president is at 800k, his VP is 500k and multiple other admin officials in similar range. It is hard not to have a bitter taste as they just offered the students $500 grant application for their COVID19 trouble. If there is one good thing about this pandemic, it is shining a light on all this.
- secabeen 6y ago
  And from the other end of the spectrum, at my University of California campus, the top salaries are all in the 300k range, and all go to world-class engineering and sciences faculty who bring in millions in research grants each year. The chancellor, deans and one coach also break 300k, but that's it. So, different schools, different governance models, different outcomes.
  - p1esk 6y ago
    Looking at UC system, I see that UCSB chancellor received $415k compensation, 9th highest at UCSB, but only 750th highest across UC campuses! Top two salaries went to athletic coaches at UCLA. https://dailynexus.com/2018-09-06/ucsb-payroll-totaled-approximately-500-million-in-2017/ https://dailynexus.com/2018-09-06/ucsb-payroll-totaled-appro...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
naveen99 6y ago
Few people I know with children in private schools(k-12) are planning on paying full tuition regardless of weather the next academic year is virtual or physical...
- geomark 6y ago
  Same with me. My kid is in an international school. The school offered an insultingly small refund that made a lot of parents angry. Not me personally, because I understand that their largest cost by far is teachers, and that cost does not go away unless they furlough the teachers, which is a big problem since they probably can't get them back when they reopen. Second thing is that most parents depend heavily on the daycare aspect of school which is not being delivered.
peter303 6y ago
I wonder how many US colleges will go under if many students dont return after the covid vaccine appears. Many were already hurting from a small GenZ cohort, competition from well-paying non-degree opportunities (now dubious), and current administration strangulation of immigrant scholars.
at_a_remove 6y ago
Reddit's "AskReddit" subreddit had a question recently hosted with a title something along the lines of "How did your college financially screw you over in this crisis?" The answers were varied and often ... "shocking" is the wrong word, because I have come to expect a kind of compulsive money-grubbing from many universities ... perhaps "flinch-inducing." Certainly the local subreddit for my city discussed similar money-grabs, nickel-and-diming, and general high-handed behavior interspersed with a general lack of competency. Even universities with some staggeringly large endowments will cry poor and point to the endowments being tied up in various investments, which did take a turn down at the start, but looking at the Dow I see that the numbers are nearly back to what they were in May of 2019. Many universities are staggeringly bloated, yet squeeze their faculty via adjuncts, then squeeze the adjuncts in turn. Why pay tenured faculty rates when you can throw in an adjunct? And then why pay the adjunct well? After all, we have these enormous administrative budgets. Having had access to some historical employer data and performing general tracking as part of a "make sure that the input is within historical limits" sanity check, I noted that staff, "important" staff, had grown massively over a decade. Now the on-campus college experience, for which so much is subtracted from student accounts in funding various events and facilities, is largely remote, well, that "value-add" is now a "where's the beef?" moment.
- irskep 6y ago
  This is the thread the parent comment is talking about, I think. https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/gqb30j/uni_students_of_reddit_what_is_the_biggest/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/gqb30j/uni_stude...
caseysoftware 6y ago
I think this will boil down to: a) What did the college promise? b) Did the college deliver it? Since there's unlikely a formal contract involved, they'll have to make a case with the public marketing and value prop which includes peers, access to professors, dorm life, state of the art labs, extracurriculars, a beautiful campus, alumni network, job fairs, etc. Most of these colleges have spent years devaluing the content itself by putting it online for free and now that's one of the few things they're still offering.. for the small price of $X0,000/year.
- PeterisP 6y ago
  In general, declared states of emergency are a valid reason to get out of the "Did the college deliver it?" question as long as they attempted mitigations that are reasonable given the restrictions.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  While I agree tuition is too high, people have gone a little crazy with using the most expensive outliers as examples. Average tuition for state schools in 2018 was around $9,000 and I don't think that includes financial aid and scholarships. And to complain about the coat of private schools is a bit like browsing around in a BMW dealership and complaining about how everything is too expensive. Not to mention that if you are low income, there are lots of very nearly free options.
tlibert 6y ago
Faculty member at a top-tier CS school. For most of the faculty where I am, an hourly consulting fee in the range of $500-1000 is reasonable. If you take the low-end of that range ($500) x 3 hours of class time per week ($1500) x 12 weeks of class you get $18,000 worth of expert time. Multiply that by three classes and you get $54k of value each semester, so even with non-trivial tuition it is still a pretty good deal. Likewise, FAANG et al recruit very heavily from our school so there is additional value-add. I personally came from modest means and have a ton of outstanding student debt and was hesitant to go the faculty route precisely because I think the higher education in the US can be financially exploitative, but there are places where the high tuition is in fact a bargain based on market rates for the expertise. Likewise, nearly all faculty at top-tier CS schools can make way more in the private sector - we do this job because we really enjoy mentoring and work hard to make sure our students get the best education possible.
- manquer 6y ago
  That kind of consulting fees for 1:20 shared time with so many other students on topics they don't control flow of ??? (i.e. I don't get to choose the specifics on topic you are "consulting" on or dictate what and how you teach me). I wouldn't be able charge $ 10,000 - $20,000 for a 1:1 consulting session ! There are very very few people in the world who can command that kind of premium
  - deleted 6y ago
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dang 6y ago
A related thread from later today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23346858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23346858

212 points by hhs 6y ago

Refunds are a pretty hard thing for universities to do though, in a lot of cases the money has already been spent. If the question is how much they charge for next semester (assuming closure or mostly online learning) then I think there's a stronger argument to not charge students as much. The student perspective is basically that you're already paying so much, that the least the university can do is do good on what's being paid for or in the event where that is not possible, simply don't charge for what's not going to happen in the fall.

graeme 6y ago
This has no bearing on legal liability. If a business doesn’t provide the promised service “we spent your money already” is no defense. Doesn’t mean universities lose the case, but whether or not they spent the money is irrelevant.
- easterncalculus 6y ago
  What does have legal liability is an act of god clause. If any sort of language like that is in whatever's being signed this situation certainly qualifies.
  - LanceH 6y ago
    A force majeure contract absolves them of delivering their service. It doesn't mean they get to change their service however they see fit and keep all the money. People up front for an in person semester. If they really want to go the force majeure route, they should return the money up front and renegotiate the rest of the semester.
    - usaar333 6y ago
      Sure, they can return some money but who knows how much was already allocated, especially with distance learning continuing. I got no refund from my kid's preschool for similar reasons. This is a really uphill legal battle
      - LanceH 6y ago
        Then they can file bankruptcy and students can stand in line as creditors. "I already spent it" isn't a legal defense for taking money and not delivering services.
        usaar333 6y ago
        Except it really is when it comes to Force Majeur.
        graeme 6y ago
        Really? If you have a source, I’m interested. I figured the event itself was the consequential part, not whether the money was spent. Also not sure the OP Meant it literally. University expenses are mostly fixed.
michaelt 6y ago
> in a lot of cases the money has already been spent Then they can take out loans or go bankrupt. I mean, if you paid for a Ferrari and the car dealer can only give you a Corolla, they owe you a refund - irrespective of how big their rent and salary bills may be.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  If they were forced to choose between going bankrupt and having traditional in-person classes, they would be offering in-person classes right now and allowing people to “opt-out” to the remote version. These companies aren’t arbitrarily choosing to educate people remotely. They’re adapting to the situation. Likewise, it would be unreasonable for employers to cut people’s compensation for working remotely under the assumption that remote work is less efficient and therefore the company deserves a refund.
  - gowld 6y ago
    Salary is governed by contract. People get pay cuts all the time.
  - klmadfejno 6y ago
    > These companies aren’t arbitrarily choosing to educate people remotely. They’re adapting to the situation. That doesn't really matter though. Like, it sucks, but they're giving a much shittier product and charging full price. Your example about people being less productive is not relevant because there's no doubt that the quality of education is much worse.
    - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
      Do you feel the same way about engineers working remotely? Is someone working remotely and communicating over Zoom delivering significantly lower quality work and therefore deserving of a lower compensation? Your assumption that there’s “no doubt” about the quality of education being worse is not a good assumption. Educators are working overtime to make the most of the remote learning situation.
andreilys 6y ago
Sure and and in some cases these universities have multi-billion dollar endowments. These universities operate more like hedge funds that offer education on the side.

LanceH 6y ago

I think the offshoot of this will be that student/university contracts are about to become massive one sided EULA's with all liability on the student side.

acomjean 6y ago

I was taking a class that transitioned online. (University extension school, biostatistics). So the networking and campus related activities don't relate to me. At the extension school, some classes were taught online already (this one was in person only). I felt the teaching staff made a pretty huge effort to get things online and running well. I'm sure they weren't getting paid more to make the transition. There was a general feeling of, this sucks but lets through it. It was a lot more work for faculty and students (It takes longer to learn material remotely, at least for me..). I don't think diplomas will have asterix next to them, saying "finished online", like the article indicates. Going forward, what tuition is going to be if classes are online in the fall is another issue. I'm guessing universities will charge what they can.

elwes5 6y ago
My guess the tuition will be similar in price. However, if it were me going to college at this time I would seriously consider skipping a year/semester if they did that. Get a small time job somewhere and help get ahead of the loans I already racked up. But that is just me. It became crystal clear to me a few years ago that these schools had gone off the rails price wise. My wife was taking 1 class. The book was more than the class and the previous semester you could not buy used. Ironically the class was micro economics.
- Cldfire 6y ago
  I would love the option to be able to skip a semester or two of college, but unfortunately if I made that choice I'd lose all of my scholarships and it would end up costing me more than whatever I'd make in the meantime :(

ben7799 6y ago

This is just the straw that is popping the college bubble. My Alma mater has 15 administrators who make 2-3x more than the President did when I graduated. The President makes $5 million+. The VP/Dean of HR makes > $1 million. Administrators took a 5% pay cut. Lots of professors are furloughed or laid off. The school did all kinds of shenanigans to hang onto as much tuition/board/food money as they could. Students are not getting what they paid for, so of course they are suing. It's the same story as every other industry in the US.. the administrators/executives trying to rob everyone blind while they can. Alumni have been furious for years now, this isn't helping.

moneywoes 6y ago
Is it private or public
- whyhow 6y ago
  It's probably public since he knows their salaries. you can get a hold of most college employee salaries through state ran databases.
  - jhart99 6y ago
    You can also pull salaries of key personnel for non-profits from their tax forms which covers manu(most) private universities.
vmchale 6y ago
If anything the pandemic seems to have made people less patient with self-justifying administrators. I don't think this can continue. Professors/teachers add value for students, you can't cut them indefinitely when they are now so much of the reason that the online college experience has value.
- jdkee 6y ago
  In the telecom industry we had an adage, “Always cut staff before line.” Staff were overhead but line produced revenue. The same applies to teaching but it is not in the self-interest of administrators to cut staff. They will soon find out the truth.

paulcole 6y ago

Investors should step in and pay the kids off (since these lawsuits are either guaranteed losers or will take years to settle). Then in exchange take a % of their future earnings. Vary the % and timeline based on the degree they're seeking.

ouid 6y ago
This is indentured servitude, and expressly forbidden in the United States.
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  This is not indentured servitude and such agreements are actively used today. (Though it is still a terrible solution)
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  No it isn’t. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_share_agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_share_agreement > An income share agreement (or ISA) is a financial structure in which an individual or organization provides something of value (often a fixed amount of money) to a recipient who, in exchange, agrees to pay back a percentage of their income for a fixed number of years. ... > Common Concerns Indentured Servitude > However, advocates of ISAs contend that since students have no legal obligation to work in a particular industry, and since it is illegal for investors to pressure them into a certain career, students are no more “indentured” than those with a student loan. In fact, someone with a traditional student loan has less choice than someone with an ISA, because the student with a loan needs to be in a career where they make at least enough income to cover their monthly payment, whereas someone with an ISA can choose to never make any money, and would never owe the investor a dime.
  - dragandj 6y ago
    Someone who does not make any money doesn't need to care about student loans either. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the debt collectors can only collect what exists. They can't force you into the debtors prison. As long as you don't have anything, you don't have to worry about anyone coming after you (in the USA).

cg505 6y ago

> "In my personal opinion, I can deliver the same quality of education online as I could in person." Although this statement is debatable to begin with, it also misses a huge point. Even if the quality of an online education is the same, many students cannot learn as anywhere near as well in that environment. They paid tens of thousands of dollars for in-person learning, so for that to be replaced with something entirely different in form really sucks.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
As the article stated, many of these universities did give partial refunds. The students are demanding even more refunds while still collecting the education. I’m curious: Would you consider the same argument valid for workers forced to work remotely? Would you be upset if a company decided to cut workers’ pay in half during COVID19 remote work under the assumption that some workers can’t be as efficient remotely? After all, the company paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for in-person work, but now they’re getting potentially worse remote work.
- ksaun 6y ago
  > As the article stated, many of these universities did give partial refunds. The students are demanding even more refunds while still collecting the education. To be clear, the article doesn't state that partial refunds of tuition have been offered, but that "many did offer partial refunds of dorm and activities fees."

jkingsbery 6y ago

I don't know about the legal question, but I think universities are setting themselves up for pain by arguing that the online experience they've been offering isn't substantially different from the in-person experience they had been offering. It's easy to imagine people calling their bluff on this, choosing to do remote learning even after COVID-19 goes away if it will save $100k+ over 4 years, and a subsequent contraction in the number of universities we need to educate people.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Universities are not arguing this. If you read the article, you’ll see that the universities in question have already, voluntarily, given partial refunds to students prior to these lawsuits. The lawsuits are demanding even more refunds while the students still want to collect the remote education. If the Universities were faced with this decision up front, it would have been better for them to furlough all employees and simply delay education until after Coronavirus. Instead, they made the best of the situation and tried to do right by the students as best they could within the financial, legal, and ethical constraints of Coronavirus. In my opinion, it’s not reasonable to demand universities operate at a loss to provide the remote education at a rate less than it costs them to operate (which I suspect may be happening already in some cases). We’re all making compromises under the circumstances. I’d be more sympathetic if these students were requesting to defer their education until after Coronavirus and were willing to forgo all education and credits in the mean time. Demanding both the education and a refund isn’t exactly fair.
- wtvanhest 6y ago
  Your opinion is reasonable from a contractual standpoint, but, contracts aren’t all that matters. Universities have a variety of tools they use to lock-in students. If the universities gave students the ability to take the semester off and get a refund before it started your argument would be strengthened. Most universities did not offer that option (if any). When you build an org with a massive cost structure, you cannot survive big risks. We are seeing it playout in a number of markets, but education is about to be changed forever
- 6y ago

jawns 6y ago

The reason there is such a large premium for on-campus education versus online universities is because on-campus education is an experience as much as it is a service. If you're only interested in mastering the content, then online learning may be the place for you. That's why we see so many people pursuing online courses for their master's degrees and when they return to school later in life. They just want the content; they don't need (or have time for) the on-campus experience aspect of college. The on-campus college experience encompasses so much more than just acquiring knowledge based on what's taught in class. It's dorm life, it's extracurriculars, it's meeting people and forming friendships and hanging out with them outside of class time. It's being in a place where there are so many interesting people to meet. It's being in a relatively forgiving environment where practically everyone is figuring out how to live on their own (or with roommates) for the first time. Being physically present in that environment is a key draw. For me, the VAST majority of the value I got out of my on-campus education was the stuff that happened outside of class time. And I'm not even talking about the friendships or the networking or the fun. I'm talking about my actual education. For instance, I learned a lot more about journalism by working for the campus newspaper than from classroom instruction. And I don't think that atmosphere or energy can be easily recreated virtually. I say that, by the way, as a remote worker who has had to spend a lot of time convincing managers and higher-ups that yes, remote workers can be as productive and energized as in-office workers. Remote workers are generally happier when they're not looking to their job to supply all of their social needs. But an on-campus experience is much more all-encompassing in terms of what needs and desires it fulfills for post-adolescents.

chii 6y ago
> It's dorm life, it's extracurriculars, it's meeting people and forming friendships and hanging out with them outside of class time. that's a community. You shouldn't have to need to pay to be part of a community. By gating this behind an expensive college tuition fee, it causes separation in society and is a cause for the inequalities of opportunities in the world. IMHO, tertiary education should be "free" (that is, a loan which is almost zero interest, and only needs to be paid back when earning above some "high" tax rate).
- 6y ago

andygcook 6y ago

It's interesting that the short term solution of not giving refunds will likely cause long-term pain for universities because they are then admitting that remote is "the same as" in person. Most of the university value is in the experience. I'd predict that if colleges don't admit in person > online and don't offer refunds, then many students will decide to save the $150K over four years and just take online courses, then live in an interesting city to get that life/social experience.

rb808 6y ago

Colleges should just open up. Young students are low risk that they're unlikely to be very sick if/when they contract disease. There will be some old or unhealthy staff members that can be protected. California and NY have stronger lock down rules, but people should just transfer to Texas, Florida places that are more open.

alistairSH 6y ago
While true that younger people are less at risk than older people, that risk is non-zero and significant. You also ignore that students don't isolate themselves within the walls of the college. They are a part of that community, using dining and retail facilities, traveling home, visiting nearby cities, etc. That puts their parents and families at risk, locals at risk, etc.
- mennis16 6y ago
  Not to mention the majority of professors would be considered at least moderate risk. Maybe I just had a particularly good experience but I got to interact with a number of profs quite a bit during undergrad. Paying for in-person with only a bunch of TAs just wouldn't be worth it IMO, plus things like campus events would also have to be limited. It would take most of the benefits of the college experience out of the picture. I think gap year is the way to go for anyone that can make it work, regardless of whether the schools try to do online only or make accomodations for in-person.

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago

Anecdata from my little corner. My 'non-profit' university's president is at 800k, his VP is 500k and multiple other admin officials in similar range. It is hard not to have a bitter taste as they just offered the students $500 grant application for their COVID19 trouble. If there is one good thing about this pandemic, it is shining a light on all this.

secabeen 6y ago
And from the other end of the spectrum, at my University of California campus, the top salaries are all in the 300k range, and all go to world-class engineering and sciences faculty who bring in millions in research grants each year. The chancellor, deans and one coach also break 300k, but that's it. So, different schools, different governance models, different outcomes.
- p1esk 6y ago
  Looking at UC system, I see that UCSB chancellor received $415k compensation, 9th highest at UCSB, but only 750th highest across UC campuses! Top two salaries went to athletic coaches at UCLA. https://dailynexus.com/2018-09-06/ucsb-payroll-totaled-approximately-500-million-in-2017/ https://dailynexus.com/2018-09-06/ucsb-payroll-totaled-appro...
- deleted 6y ago
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naveen99 6y ago

Few people I know with children in private schools(k-12) are planning on paying full tuition regardless of weather the next academic year is virtual or physical...

geomark 6y ago
Same with me. My kid is in an international school. The school offered an insultingly small refund that made a lot of parents angry. Not me personally, because I understand that their largest cost by far is teachers, and that cost does not go away unless they furlough the teachers, which is a big problem since they probably can't get them back when they reopen. Second thing is that most parents depend heavily on the daycare aspect of school which is not being delivered.

peter303 6y ago

I wonder how many US colleges will go under if many students dont return after the covid vaccine appears. Many were already hurting from a small GenZ cohort, competition from well-paying non-degree opportunities (now dubious), and current administration strangulation of immigrant scholars.

at_a_remove 6y ago

Reddit's "AskReddit" subreddit had a question recently hosted with a title something along the lines of "How did your college financially screw you over in this crisis?" The answers were varied and often ... "shocking" is the wrong word, because I have come to expect a kind of compulsive money-grubbing from many universities ... perhaps "flinch-inducing." Certainly the local subreddit for my city discussed similar money-grabs, nickel-and-diming, and general high-handed behavior interspersed with a general lack of competency. Even universities with some staggeringly large endowments will cry poor and point to the endowments being tied up in various investments, which did take a turn down at the start, but looking at the Dow I see that the numbers are nearly back to what they were in May of 2019. Many universities are staggeringly bloated, yet squeeze their faculty via adjuncts, then squeeze the adjuncts in turn. Why pay tenured faculty rates when you can throw in an adjunct? And then why pay the adjunct well? After all, we have these enormous administrative budgets. Having had access to some historical employer data and performing general tracking as part of a "make sure that the input is within historical limits" sanity check, I noted that staff, "important" staff, had grown massively over a decade. Now the on-campus college experience, for which so much is subtracted from student accounts in funding various events and facilities, is largely remote, well, that "value-add" is now a "where's the beef?" moment.

irskep 6y ago
This is the thread the parent comment is talking about, I think. https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/gqb30j/uni_students_of_reddit_what_is_the_biggest/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/gqb30j/uni_stude...

caseysoftware 6y ago

I think this will boil down to: a) What did the college promise? b) Did the college deliver it? Since there's unlikely a formal contract involved, they'll have to make a case with the public marketing and value prop which includes peers, access to professors, dorm life, state of the art labs, extracurriculars, a beautiful campus, alumni network, job fairs, etc. Most of these colleges have spent years devaluing the content itself by putting it online for free and now that's one of the few things they're still offering.. for the small price of $X0,000/year.

PeterisP 6y ago
In general, declared states of emergency are a valid reason to get out of the "Did the college deliver it?" question as long as they attempted mitigations that are reasonable given the restrictions.
jjeaff 6y ago
While I agree tuition is too high, people have gone a little crazy with using the most expensive outliers as examples. Average tuition for state schools in 2018 was around $9,000 and I don't think that includes financial aid and scholarships. And to complain about the coat of private schools is a bit like browsing around in a BMW dealership and complaining about how everything is too expensive. Not to mention that if you are low income, there are lots of very nearly free options.

tlibert 6y ago

Faculty member at a top-tier CS school. For most of the faculty where I am, an hourly consulting fee in the range of $500-1000 is reasonable. If you take the low-end of that range ($500) x 3 hours of class time per week ($1500) x 12 weeks of class you get $18,000 worth of expert time. Multiply that by three classes and you get $54k of value each semester, so even with non-trivial tuition it is still a pretty good deal. Likewise, FAANG et al recruit very heavily from our school so there is additional value-add. I personally came from modest means and have a ton of outstanding student debt and was hesitant to go the faculty route precisely because I think the higher education in the US can be financially exploitative, but there are places where the high tuition is in fact a bargain based on market rates for the expertise. Likewise, nearly all faculty at top-tier CS schools can make way more in the private sector - we do this job because we really enjoy mentoring and work hard to make sure our students get the best education possible.

manquer 6y ago
That kind of consulting fees for 1:20 shared time with so many other students on topics they don't control flow of ??? (i.e. I don't get to choose the specifics on topic you are "consulting" on or dictate what and how you teach me). I wouldn't be able charge $ 10,000 - $20,000 for a 1:1 consulting session ! There are very very few people in the world who can command that kind of premium
- deleted 6y ago
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dang 6y ago

A related thread from later today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23346858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23346858