Students File Lawsuits Against Universities After Dissatisfaction With Online Classes During Remote Learning
Students at more than two dozen universities and colleges have filed a lawsuit seeking partial refunds for tuition and campus fees. They believe that their schools, which replaced in-person classes with online learning due to the coronavirus pandemic, are not giving them the level of instruction they expected when they switched.
"You just feel a little bit diminished," Grainger Rickenbaker, 21, a Drexel University freshman told CBS News. "It's just not the same experience I would be getting if I was at the campus."
Schools had to quickly switch their learning infrastructure to online learning beginning in March when it became apparent that the disease was spreading and college campuses would be places where COVID-19 could run rampant, almost unchecked.
Students nationwide in response adjusted by logging on to laptops and attending lectures given by instructors and professors who are teaching remotely. However, some students at universities like Brown, Columbia and Cornell and other private universities like Vanderbilt as well as public institutions like Purdue and the University of Colorado Boulder, are saying that the quality they once expected on campus does not exist online.
There’s nothing new about online learning at the collegiate level. In 2017, over six million students participated in an online class, which was a way to bridge the gap for many students of color unable to afford the traditional experience. In fact, whether public or private, Black people were more likely than any other racial group to take online courses.
Now, some students are suing schools individually, while others have joined class action lawsuits against the institutions.
Ken McConnellogue, a spokesperson for the University of Colorado says the lawsuits are coming from a small group of law firms, which he believes are looking for a payday opportunity.
"Our faculty have been working extremely hard to deliver an academic product that's got the same high standards, high-quality academic rigor as what they would deliver in the classroom," McConnellogue said. "It's different, no doubt. And it's not ideal. We all would prefer to have students on our campuses, but at the same time, we're in the middle of a global pandemic here."
The students' lawyers, however, say they are paying money for something they are not getting.
"You cannot keep money for services and access if you aren't actually providing it," said Roy Willey of South Carolina-based Anastopoulo Law Firm.
The firm is representing students in more than a dozen of the cases, CBS News reports. "If we're truly going to be all in this together, the universities have to tighten their belts and refund the money back to students and families who really need it."
