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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 i

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
- josephorjoe 6y ago
  > 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 it's not reasonable to expect students to pay for the costs of operating a university when all they receive is a glorified khan academy experience.
- CogitoCogito 6y ago
  > 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). I think it depends on the endowment. If the University in fact has a lot of money, then I think they _should_ be operating at a loss while taking advantage of their cushion. But yeah for the majority of universities not in that situation I do agree with you.
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    Endowment money is often contractually allocated to specific things to prevent this exact scenario.
    - CogitoCogito 6y ago
      I guess you're right that many large gifts are, but what about the (combination of) small gifts? And all returns on interest on such gifts? I mean if I donate money I don't know what contract would exist preventing it to be used for this sort of a purpose. Who would the contract even be with if I personally don't agree to it and I'm the one donating?
- andreilys 6y ago
  Georgia tech offers a fantastic online CS masters program for $6.6k (1/6th of the cost of on campus degree). I highly doubt that these universities have offered even close to a 5/6th refund to their students.
  - marcell 6y ago
    This could be explained by the difference between fixed costs and marginal costs, and the fact that in person students paying higher fees subsidize part of the fixed costs.
  - krapht 6y ago
    Eh, qualify fantastic. It's great in that the courses are difficult, and if you complete them it will signal you are smart computer scientist; it's backed by GaTech's name brand and the diploma is the same as the on-campus diploma. It's not fantastic in that the courses vary wildly in quality, are mostly taught by teaching assistants, can require 20 or more hours of (busy-ish depending on course) work per week, and just like undergrad, you will struggle and be forced to teach yourself the material instead of being taught a significant portion of the time. Usually the textbook is much more informative than the lecture; your life is better if you own many textbooks on the subject since often the lecture information density and coherence is poor. What I'm saying is, the course lectures are pretty mediocre for ~40% of offered courses. OMSCS is valuable because it's cheap and prestigious, not because the instruction is high-quality. It's great for self-starters, auto-didacts, and hard-workers with background in the subjects (admittedly, most students from decent engineering schools will qualify).
    - andreilys 6y ago
      Fantastic in that you can easily graduate debt-free with a degree that sends a strong signal in industry. The alternative is graduating 6-figures in debt, and having missed out on all the benefits of on-campus learning.
- mdszy 6y ago
  Ah yes, why won't anyone think of the poor administrators who get paid obnoxious salaries for doing effectively none of the labor that goes into providing an education for the students.
  - adminprof 6y ago
    While in general I agree that there are too many administrators at many universities, this type of argument is ineffective without pointing out exactly which administrators. And I find that once you try to do that, no one agrees which administrators should be cut. Do you want to cut the administrators responsible for diversity and inclusion? Or the administrators responsible for tech transfer? Or the Dean of the College? Or administrators that manage grants? Or administrators of admissions, or athletics, title IX, or school of medicine? Give us some specifics to discuss. Because while almost everyone agrees administration needs to be trimmed, if everyone just wants to keep the ones they think are important and there's not much overlap, then there's clearly no way to do this. Same as when people say "government should stop spending on useless things, government should be smaller and trim the fat / pork barrel spending". Yeah of course when you put it that way, who wouldn't agree with that. But when you get specific, "government should reduce veteran's benefits, national parks, border security, obesity research, food stamps, etc." well that's when it's not so easy.
    - wtdo 6y ago
      This frames the question wrong and deceptively so. When you say "cut the administrators responsible for diversity and inclusion", you frame it as getting rid of diversity and inclusion. But you can go without an administrator whose sole purpose is diversity and inclusion and still have diversity and inclusion be handled. That sounds like the kind of thing the administrators in admissions ought to be handling. Why can't the Dean of the College also handle grants for their college? Why is there a Dean of the College of Athletics that isn't also handling athletics and the parts of title IX that are relevant?
      - adminprof 6y ago
        I didn't frame it as getting rid of diversity and inclusion, that's just usually how the roles are defined. But you're missing my point completely (maybe intentionally?). I'm just saying that we should talk about specific administrators or administrative units, not "administration is too big". So let's talk about that, not whether your framing of my framing of the university's framing is accurate. And you'll see that this is effective, because now when you ask those more specific questions, there are potentially good discussions. Like "Why is there a Dean of the College of Athletics that isn't also handling athletics and the parts of title IX that are relevant" and someone might wonder if it makes sense (based on your proposed structure) for the Dean of Athletics to be handling rape cases, and whether they have the expertise to deal with the federal regulations that come with Title IX. Or "Why can't the Dean of the College also handle grants for their college?" and someone might wonder why it makes sense for someone responsible for undergraduate education (which might not involve research in some universities) to handle grants, which is usually related to graduate education and research (and in many fields, don't involve students at all). Or "administrators in admissions ought to be handling [diversity and inclusion]" and someone might wonder if there should not be someone also responsible for diversity and inclusion in faculty/staff/administrator hiring, or in campus policies around inclusion (like accessibility services), which are post-admissions.
- albntomat0 6y ago
  > "When universities across the U.S. shut their doors because of the coronavirus pandemic and sent students home, many did offer partial refunds of dorm and activities fees." It comes down to the amount of the refund. Students are still receiving something online, but less than they'd receive in person, both in quality of education (e.g. no chemistry labs) and everything else that physical attendance comes with. Arguing for a higher discount factor seems fine to me, and probably depends on the amount the college has already agreed to.
- willcipriano 6y ago
  >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 I feel its not reasonable to ask students to pay more than fair market value for what they receive regardless of operational costs. They should refund up to what similar online schools charge today. If it costs the auto dealer as much as a new BMW to deliver a used Toyota, that isn't my problem I'm only paying used Toyota pricing or I'm taking the matter to court.
  - californical 6y ago
    If the grocery store is charging too much for oranges, do you take them to court too? Or do you just go to another grocery store...
    - willcipriano 6y ago
      I can more easily change grocery stores than I am able to change colleges. Credits aren't often 100% transferable, also a degree from another school may be less valuable but also less costly, therefore the money I already spent on the more expensive degree may be lost.

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
josephorjoe 6y ago
> 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 it's not reasonable to expect students to pay for the costs of operating a university when all they receive is a glorified khan academy experience.
CogitoCogito 6y ago
> 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). I think it depends on the endowment. If the University in fact has a lot of money, then I think they _should_ be operating at a loss while taking advantage of their cushion. But yeah for the majority of universities not in that situation I do agree with you.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  Endowment money is often contractually allocated to specific things to prevent this exact scenario.
  - CogitoCogito 6y ago
    I guess you're right that many large gifts are, but what about the (combination of) small gifts? And all returns on interest on such gifts? I mean if I donate money I don't know what contract would exist preventing it to be used for this sort of a purpose. Who would the contract even be with if I personally don't agree to it and I'm the one donating?
andreilys 6y ago
Georgia tech offers a fantastic online CS masters program for $6.6k (1/6th of the cost of on campus degree). I highly doubt that these universities have offered even close to a 5/6th refund to their students.
- marcell 6y ago
  This could be explained by the difference between fixed costs and marginal costs, and the fact that in person students paying higher fees subsidize part of the fixed costs.
- krapht 6y ago
  Eh, qualify fantastic. It's great in that the courses are difficult, and if you complete them it will signal you are smart computer scientist; it's backed by GaTech's name brand and the diploma is the same as the on-campus diploma. It's not fantastic in that the courses vary wildly in quality, are mostly taught by teaching assistants, can require 20 or more hours of (busy-ish depending on course) work per week, and just like undergrad, you will struggle and be forced to teach yourself the material instead of being taught a significant portion of the time. Usually the textbook is much more informative than the lecture; your life is better if you own many textbooks on the subject since often the lecture information density and coherence is poor. What I'm saying is, the course lectures are pretty mediocre for ~40% of offered courses. OMSCS is valuable because it's cheap and prestigious, not because the instruction is high-quality. It's great for self-starters, auto-didacts, and hard-workers with background in the subjects (admittedly, most students from decent engineering schools will qualify).
  - andreilys 6y ago
    Fantastic in that you can easily graduate debt-free with a degree that sends a strong signal in industry. The alternative is graduating 6-figures in debt, and having missed out on all the benefits of on-campus learning.
mdszy 6y ago
Ah yes, why won't anyone think of the poor administrators who get paid obnoxious salaries for doing effectively none of the labor that goes into providing an education for the students.
- adminprof 6y ago
  While in general I agree that there are too many administrators at many universities, this type of argument is ineffective without pointing out exactly which administrators. And I find that once you try to do that, no one agrees which administrators should be cut. Do you want to cut the administrators responsible for diversity and inclusion? Or the administrators responsible for tech transfer? Or the Dean of the College? Or administrators that manage grants? Or administrators of admissions, or athletics, title IX, or school of medicine? Give us some specifics to discuss. Because while almost everyone agrees administration needs to be trimmed, if everyone just wants to keep the ones they think are important and there's not much overlap, then there's clearly no way to do this. Same as when people say "government should stop spending on useless things, government should be smaller and trim the fat / pork barrel spending". Yeah of course when you put it that way, who wouldn't agree with that. But when you get specific, "government should reduce veteran's benefits, national parks, border security, obesity research, food stamps, etc." well that's when it's not so easy.
  - wtdo 6y ago
    This frames the question wrong and deceptively so. When you say "cut the administrators responsible for diversity and inclusion", you frame it as getting rid of diversity and inclusion. But you can go without an administrator whose sole purpose is diversity and inclusion and still have diversity and inclusion be handled. That sounds like the kind of thing the administrators in admissions ought to be handling. Why can't the Dean of the College also handle grants for their college? Why is there a Dean of the College of Athletics that isn't also handling athletics and the parts of title IX that are relevant?
    - adminprof 6y ago
      I didn't frame it as getting rid of diversity and inclusion, that's just usually how the roles are defined. But you're missing my point completely (maybe intentionally?). I'm just saying that we should talk about specific administrators or administrative units, not "administration is too big". So let's talk about that, not whether your framing of my framing of the university's framing is accurate. And you'll see that this is effective, because now when you ask those more specific questions, there are potentially good discussions. Like "Why is there a Dean of the College of Athletics that isn't also handling athletics and the parts of title IX that are relevant" and someone might wonder if it makes sense (based on your proposed structure) for the Dean of Athletics to be handling rape cases, and whether they have the expertise to deal with the federal regulations that come with Title IX. Or "Why can't the Dean of the College also handle grants for their college?" and someone might wonder why it makes sense for someone responsible for undergraduate education (which might not involve research in some universities) to handle grants, which is usually related to graduate education and research (and in many fields, don't involve students at all). Or "administrators in admissions ought to be handling [diversity and inclusion]" and someone might wonder if there should not be someone also responsible for diversity and inclusion in faculty/staff/administrator hiring, or in campus policies around inclusion (like accessibility services), which are post-admissions.
albntomat0 6y ago
> "When universities across the U.S. shut their doors because of the coronavirus pandemic and sent students home, many did offer partial refunds of dorm and activities fees." It comes down to the amount of the refund. Students are still receiving something online, but less than they'd receive in person, both in quality of education (e.g. no chemistry labs) and everything else that physical attendance comes with. Arguing for a higher discount factor seems fine to me, and probably depends on the amount the college has already agreed to.
willcipriano 6y ago
>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 I feel its not reasonable to ask students to pay more than fair market value for what they receive regardless of operational costs. They should refund up to what similar online schools charge today. If it costs the auto dealer as much as a new BMW to deliver a used Toyota, that isn't my problem I'm only paying used Toyota pricing or I'm taking the matter to court.
- californical 6y ago
  If the grocery store is charging too much for oranges, do you take them to court too? Or do you just go to another grocery store...
  - willcipriano 6y ago
    I can more easily change grocery stores than I am able to change colleges. Credits aren't often 100% transferable, also a degree from another school may be less valuable but also less costly, therefore the money I already spent on the more expensive degree may be lost.