
Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds - hbcondo714
https://apnews.com/f18a0a48925a19586e4d810f6e88eff3
======
supernova87a
I remember wondering aloud at MIT/Harvard putting their courses online for
free for anyone to listen to, and saying, well what is the value add then of
paying to physically go to college?

I guess we're going to find out whether the networking, friends, social aspect
is worth it. There's also something about the competitive aspect of seeing
other people in person do better than you or have better ideas than you. Which
is hard virtually.

That being said, the college experience has gone through events like wars,
plague, disruption, etc, and has come back before. (Although not at a time
when there was such a ready alternative technology at hand.) I'm not yet so
worried as some say (wholesale change to the higher education model), unless
this goes on for 2-3 years.

~~~
skocznymroczny
I know this might not be received well by the HN crowd, but I feel like the
classes and networking are secondary, the main value of a reputable college is
having a reputable college you can put on your résumé.

~~~
bko
Bryan Kaplan argues that the majority of the value of a reputable college is
signaling.

> Suppose your law firm wants a summer associate. A law student with a
> doctorate in philosophy from Stanford applies. What do you infer? The
> applicant is probably brilliant, diligent, and willing to tolerate serious
> boredom. If you’re looking for that kind of worker—and what employer
> isn’t?—you’ll make an offer, knowing full well that nothing the philosopher
> learned at Stanford will be relevant to this job.

If the value of education was the information taught in the classes or the
network, you should see a somewhat linear increase of value as you progress.
For instance, after completing your second year out of four, you should
receive ~50% of the college premium.

> Most of the salary payoff for college comes from crossing the graduation
> finish line. Suppose you drop out after a year. You’ll receive a salary bump
> compared with someone who’s attended no college, but it won’t be anywhere
> near 25 percent of the salary premium you’d get for a four-year degree.
> Similarly, the premium for sophomore year is nowhere near 50 percent of the
> return on a bachelor’s degree, and the premium for junior year is nowhere
> near 75 percent of that return. Indeed, in the average study, senior year of
> college brings more than twice the pay increase of freshman, sophomore, and
> junior years combined. Unless colleges delay job training until the very
> end, signaling is practically the only explanation

[0]
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/whats-c...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/whats-
college-good-for/546590/)

~~~
supernova87a
This is very true! I believe (don't have a good reference) that companies in
the past had more incentive and means to cultivate or train people on the job,
and thus, a formal signal of education wasn't as important. (and until
1950s(?), wasn't as available to many)

I seem to observe that now many companies generally want to pick the already-
developed crop of people who fit the bill to a T, have had education or
previous employment do the job of training / filtering who to consider, and
not engage in the training part of it much any more.

Maybe it's due to the increasing cost of hiring people that you must only take
a chance on a sure bet, and that there is less and less appetite (financial
return-wise) to spend money on training people who are just as likely to pick
up and leave for another company.

~~~
cat199
> Maybe it's due to the increasing cost of hiring people

... perhaps put another way, the 'professionalization' of HR?

~~~
supernova87a
I also meant, when employing someone for any kind of position of
responsibility costs $100k minimum, you don't make big bets on unproven
people.

------
hysan
Not too surprising that the experience wasn’t good. Having taught in-person
and online before, I can guarantee that these students ended up with a sub-
optimal experience at best. Teaching online is drastically different than in-
person and is not something you can easily pick-up in short notice. Made worse
is that they were in the middle of a syllabus designed for in-person
instruction. How material is delivered, what type of assignments to give, how
to even grade those assignments, etc. - all of that needs to be tailored to an
online environment in order to have a good experience. You can’t just “adapt”
it like driving on the opposite side of the road. And this is also ignoring
tooling needed to make the online experience productive.

I believe the colleges when they say that their professors are doing their
best. That they are delivering the same high level material. However, that is
willfully ignoring the fact that content is a very small part of the college
education experience. The delivery, environment, and people are what gives
college its value. Lose that and the cost, especially for these high ranking
colleges, is not worth it.

~~~
0d9eooo
I've not taught online, but I have a close colleague who was doing it for
years pre-pandemic, and another colleague who did a bit of it and my
impressions are the same.

My sense is that major universities doing online stuff have video production
crews (from Communications etc) and everything is heavily edited and redone.
It's more like a television show than anything else. Much more preplanning,
and interactions with the students are much more structured.

It's _not_ like some zoom meeting off-the-cuff with your professor who had to
switch gears on the spot along with you, while you're uprooted like a minor
refugee and living who knows where that you didn't plan to.

Students will be back in the fall. The risks of returning do not approach the
risks of not returning for most undergrad-age students. This is especially
true that universities will be prepared this fall, and were not in late
winter/early spring.

My sense is that a lot of the schadenfreude and resentment here on HN and
elsewhere is due to a general sense that something is really very wrong with
higher education at the moment, at least in the US, and wanting to see it
radically reformed. I agree, but I think the problems are not really related
to the value of in-person degree education vs what you can get online. The
real issues have to do with the cost of the education in general, how degrees
are viewed in vocational settings, and costs and spending within higher
educational institutions. Until those things change, it will take a lot more
than SARS-CoV-2 to change things.

~~~
peterwoerner
Its not so much that anything is wrong with college, it is that the cost isn't
commiserate with the expected payout (for most). Yet we, as a society, push
people who are barely adults into a lifetime of debt slavery like sheep to the
slaughter.

~~~
softawre
This is definitely changing now. It was like this when I went to college 15
years ago but the tides are changing.

~~~
peterwoerner
I hope that is true. I graduated from undergraduate 10 years ago. My alma
mater used to be very good bang for your buck, arguably the best traditional
engineering and nursing school in the state, less than 5000 a year, accept
almost everyone and fail the ones who won't make it early so they can do other
things. But pressure from the state government shifted funding to retention
rates so that model of education was dying.

------
red_admiral
If I go into a restaurant and order pork, but get served beef, I have a right
as a customer to complain. It doesn't matter whether beef is in some way
better than pork, or whether other customers are perfectly happy with beef, or
whether I eat beef myself at other times. I order pork, I expect pork.

If the restaurant can't serve me pork, for example because they've run out,
then the right answer is still not to just assume I'll be ok with beef
instead.

I don't see how "this other thing is of equal value" (which is debatable in
itself) is a defense to a claim that I'm not getting the product or service
that I signed up for?

~~~
unishark
This analogy can still go either way. You ate half the meal. Then there they
had to kick you out to finish at home with a doggy bag. You're losing out on
some ambience, but the thing you showed up to achieve will be achieved.

Note that there are already refunds for at least some of the in-person stuff
such as dorms and gym access. So were already in a position of compromise and
partial refund. It's just an argument of what that number should be.

~~~
wccrawford
The first half of the meal, the portion they ate, _was_ what they paid for.
The meal was suddenly changed halfway through, but there was no option to stop
paying. And in this case, the first half of the meal doesn't mean anything
without the second half.

~~~
itronitron
Like if you went to a 'make-your-own-pizza' place and were forced to leave the
building by a fire marshal after having placed your pizza, with custom
toppings, in the oven.

~~~
deegles
Also, the pizza cost $25,000.

------
gibolt
As much as I wish it were better, most online courses offered by universities
do not come close to the in-person experience. Their real goal/outcome is to
increase access.

Professors are trained (most at least) to teach in-person and have assignments
and curriculums that match. They can't redo that appropriately to be equally
effective within a week or two. Few could do it well given over a year doing
online only.

Tools are being built and the experience will improve thanks to this global
reset.

Education is a space that hasn't really been disrupted ever. Definitely isn't
happening within a few weeks.

~~~
intended
Education has been disrupted.

The disruption taught us that education is more than what we think of when we
imagine the word studying.

Khan Academy exists, and has existed for a while.

The MOOC rush is over. We know the organic retention rates are abysmal.

Online education was/is the holy grail of 2000 era layman ideas of education.

Free, world class, available at your finger tips, at any time, educational
content.

Yet We know that with this world class information and self selected motivated
students (!!) only a tiny fraction of the class will finish.

In contrast, most people who get in, finish college.

In person education beats online education hollow.

Matter of fact even the work from home enthusiasm will wane and return to
office work.

There are too many things people do by being in proximity to each other which
may have nothing to do with the “mission”, but make the mission possible.

~~~
11eleven
> In contrast, most people who get in, finish college. > In person education
> beats online education hollow.

This isn't really true.

"According to the National Center for Education Statistics, just 41% of first-
time full-time college students earn a bachelor’s degree in four years, and
only 59% earn a bachelor’s in six years."

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/19/just-41percent-of-college-
st...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/19/just-41percent-of-college-students-
graduate-in-four-years.html)

~~~
intended
As you yourself point out, 59% finish in 6 years.

In contrast, these are MOOC completion rates:

>Among all MOOC participants, 3.13 percent completed their courses in 2017-18,
down from about 4 percent the two previous years and nearly 6 percent in
2014-15.

www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/01/16/study-offers-data-
show-moocs-didnt-achieve-their-goals

They add:

>Certainly 55,000 people got access to education they might not otherwise have
had. But "rather than creating new pathways at the margins of global higher
education," the authors write, "MOOCs are primarily a complementary asset for
learners within existing systems."

They do allude to a construct called "Verfied Students" which I have no idea
about, which have higher but significantly varying completion rates.

> And among the "verified" students, 46 percent completed in 2017-18, compared
> to 56 percent in 2016-17 and about 50 percent the two previous years.

I have never encountered how that cohort was constructed, however if we are to
start breaking down sub groups of students from general numbers, your data
shows that non-profit and public institutions have near 60% graduation rates
at 6 years.

In general a random student will more will likely graduate from a college,
than a random person starting a MOOC.

~~~
gbrown
It’s not really a meaningful comparison though - MOOCs have a lower (zero)
barrier to entry, and a lower (zero) price of dropping. College is expensive,
requires admission, and confers actual credit/degrees.

------
shawnps
Online classes can work, but it makes sense that students are frustrated by
courses put together quickly due to unforeseen circumstances.

I've been a student of Georgia Tech's online Master's program for a few
semesters now. They've had years to iterate based on previous students'
feedback. I am learning an incredible amount for a decent price. But it is a
Master's program and involves a lot of self-motivated research. Also, it costs
roughly $850 per semester (if you take only one course). I'm not sure I'd have
done it if it had cost thousands.

~~~
smileysteve
Gt's master in CS prices are, I think, the biggest reason for a large refund
for this online half semester.

Where in state tuition is $13k a year, out of state is $33 and a masters
program is $10k total (or $1700 a year based on the same calculations)

~~~
jki275
GT's MSCS is a totally different instruction model. It's all MOOCS, not
focused online learning with regular sized classes. Most of the classes have
600 students in them.

------
ocdtrekkie
My college extended the ability to drop the class for a full refund to nearly
the end of the semester. No lawsuit needed. For schools refusing to do this, I
absolutely think people should be suing though.

I am all for online education, but it's hit and miss how comparable it is. The
course I'm taking at the moment is nearly exactly the same without it's in-
class component: I wasn't even attending the in-person classes before the
pandemic! But plenty of other classes I took were largely for the hands-on
experience which couldn't be replicated over the web.

------
ImaCake
I am doing a course on epidemiology this semester and I find it is once of the
best courses I have ever taken, offline or online. It is offered, usually, in
both online and in-person formats. It is very well designed and has rich
content and opportunity for online interaction. I get the impression the in-
person version is just as good as the online one. So why is this one so good
when so many suck? Two possibilities: 1\. The course has had an online format
for several years and is thus experienced with online delivery.

2\. It is a _well designed course_ , regardless of delivery format. Which
means only a reasonable amount of deliberation and care is needed to make it
good for online delivery.

My conclusion is that I don't think the format is the issue. I think the issue
is that most courses are poorly designed in the first place. Insufficient
effort and resources are applied and the result is crap.

This comes with the caveats that many topics are best learnt in practical
settings (chemistry, some biology, arts etc) so they translate poorly to
online only.

------
madsbuch
I guess this is a consequence of building an educational system that is for
profit and where student pay a (substantiel) part of their tuition. European
universities have also closed, yet I still have to hear about any complaints.

In fact, it seems like the Corona crisis will boost university applications in
Europe - If you can't have your gab year and find work you might as well just
study. In the US it seems like we will see the opposite effect - Less people
will apply and commence studies.

~~~
evgen
In the UK you have almost as many complaints regarding the second-half of the
school year evaporating with additional news about the universities themselves
starting to panic because international students were their primary source of
funding and that looks to be drying up.

~~~
madsbuch
You got me on an imprecision. UK is definitely also an Anglo cultural country
in this regard. I reckon they also pay most of their own tuition?

~~~
evgen
Citizens pay a lot less than international students, and universities have
come to rely upon the money from those international students. The threat of
not having international students for a year or two is causing some panic and
it is expected that some of the more marginal universities will close.

------
Wowfunhappy
I don't know what the implications would be on finances / resource allocation
for the school, but IMO everyone's education should be "paused" right now,
including K-12. If you were going to graduate in six months, and the
Coronavirus ends up closing campus for six months, you'll now graduate in 12
months, after you've had your due time on campus. And that additional six
months of schooling comes at no additional cost.

If I had a reservation at a restaurant before the Coranvirus, and the
restaurant is now closed, I'm not forced to buy a take-out order instead—I
just don't pay. That really sucks for all the people who work at the
restaurant, but I don't think forcing customers to pay for a service they
didn't receive is the right solution.

~~~
user5994461
All students and pupils are forming a chain where each promotion is expected
to move up one year, replaced by the next promotion. There ain't a pause
capability in the educational system, things MUST move forward every year at a
define schedule. If anything, that's a good example of what a "deadline" is.

It can ignore a few months of disturbance, as demonstrated by long strikes or
major events. It can't skip one cycle.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
We can't skip a cycle, but we can move the students up even though they
haven't actually completed their education?

Make no mistake, the situation sucks for everyone. But it seems to me that
actually educating people should take priority over meeting an arbitrary
deadline.

~~~
user5994461
Apparently schools can let children move on no matter what. When unable to
hold end of year exams (end of middle school and high school), they will use
the current grades so far and do away without any exam.

For universities, it's gonna be a lot more tricky. They shouldn't get away
with charging up to 50k a year for nothing. They can't deliver labs and
practical trainings. There is no continuity between an undergraduate and an
postgraduate, probably somewhere else.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
> Apparently schools can let children move on no matter what.

Colleges could also snap their fingers and mail everyone diplomas in exchange
for nothing, if they felt so inclined.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that schools aren't just meaningless
certificate factories and that the students who attend them actually learn
stuff. Just because the students are being moved up doesn't mean they're
adequately prepared for next year.

~~~
user5994461
I agree, there is training that can't be skipped. I think it's mostly a
problem for higher education, not for schools.

If a child didn't fully learn to write, or a high schooler didn't complete
calculus, they can catch up the next year. (schools will probably have to
adjust their curriculum slightly to catch up). Schools don't teach anything
major that can't be redone or skipped.

Universities don't have this luxury. If a future dentist didn't train on a
procedure this year, too bad because that was the only time it's covered.
Gonna have to discover it in the field if it comes up?

------
usrusr
Turn education into a business and students will treat education like a
business. You can't expect goodwill in a crisis when you squeeze people like a
US college.

------
chadash
I wouldn't take this as an indicator in general that online classes are good
or bad (I'm personally not a fan). I think everyone can agree that the quality
of classes is going to go down when you have to stop in-person classes mid-
semester with no time to prepare for an online transition. Teaching online is
a different style that doesn't necessarily work for every instructor or for
every subject for that matter.

At the same time, university is extraordinarily expensive. If you are paying
50K/year and not getting what you paid for, you are going to feel like you are
owed something. Add on the fact that many students' parents have lost all or
parts of their incomes, or fear that they will going forward, and it would be
surprising if we didn't see these lawsuits.

Ultimately, it's going to depend what is in the contracts that were signed. If
there's a _force majure_ clause favoring the universities, then the students
may not have a case. If not, then yeah, they aren't getting what they paid for
and should be entitled to refunds.

------
caseysoftware
I think the fascinating thing about these lawsuits is that they'll revolve
around two questions:

 _First, what did the schools promise? And, did they deliver on it?_

I doubt it's spelled out in a contract but based on most schools' marketing,
the "promise" includes instruction, state of the art classrooms & labs, access
to professors, peers, extra curricular activities, dorms, a beautiful campus,
and a number of other things. Obviously they've delivered some form of
instruction and potentially a way to connect with peers.. but was it the
quality or even the product promised/implied?

~~~
fluffything
The easiest court cases to win in practice involve schools promising students
that their degree will land them a good job that will pay enough for them to
pay back the student fees without problems.

These promises typically happen when people are doubting about signing the
contract, and universities are more like "don't worry about the loan, you'll
get such a nice job afterwards that you'll be rich and this will feel like
pocketchange".

The student that finish university and aren't able to land a good enough job
due to their education can sue and do often win.

That's much simpler to handle in court than the questions you are considering,
but it requires actually finishing the degree.

------
xiaolingxiao
People focus a lot on whether online can replicate the in-person experience of
networking, building relationships, etc. The other part of it is that student
tuition pay for the use of facilities as well, not just classrooms, but also
the recreation center and other campus amenities. So in other words, not all
the money went into the "intangibles", but rather the very real tangibles.

Another comparison would be to prepay for a sit down experience at a high end
restaurant, only to be told the restaurant shut down and you're actually going
to actually have to get the food delivered. Presumably you'd want a partial
refund not just because you didn't get the "magical vibe", but also because
you literally did not sit in the physical space for 2+ hours.

------
blackrock
What’s the point of paying for college, if you’re stuck behind a webcam?

Yes, you can learn some things, but you can also learn it by just watching
YouTube.

The whole point of being physically present in college, is to commingle with
your peers. Because surely, you’re not going to make friends over Zoom. That’s
just pretty damn lame.

Of course, you hope to sharpen a few skills, and learn a few more things in
the 4 years, but just being present is part of the experience. But you’re
definitely not going to make a life long friend over Zoom, as opposed to
having beers or just chilling at a house party, after your midterms are done.

Colleges should offer online education for $1. It’s useful, but not quite the
same.

~~~
tester3
>What’s the point of paying for college, if you’re stuck behind a webcam?

>Yes, you can learn some things, but you can also learn it by just watching
YouTube.

This relies on heavy assumptions.

I recently had a few programming classes with lecturer who has 15 years of
experience in industry and a lot of in academia

Not only his lectures are at very good level - best practices, industry
standards but also very fresh technology and additionally you have an
opportunity to ask questions.

It's not that easy to find this kind of materials on Youtube or even paid
services.

Youtube often covers topics briefly, so you have to try to find blogs of an
actual experts.

------
speedgoose
I feel lucky to live in a part of the world where good education is free. In
France, you even get some money and an apartment from the state if you need it
to study.

------
russellbeattie
> "Some estimate that they could lose up to $1 billion this year as they brace
> for downturns in student enrollment..."

3.7 million kids graduating this year, 70% of them planning on going to
college, and probably 100% of their parents wondering if they should encourage
their kid to defer for a year until things get back to normal.

The drop in enrollment could be lessened a bit by lowering tuition for
pandemic-related online classes, if required again (more than likely).
Especially since many of those who take the year off may never return. If the
colleges were smart they'd think about this before digging their heals in.

~~~
ghaff
>3.7 million kids graduating this year, 70% of them planning on going to
college, and probably 100% of their parents wondering if they should encourage
their kid to defer for a year until things get back to normal.

I can only imagine. It's by no means a given that all universities will even
be open for the fall term--and it's hard for me to imagine it makes sense to
start college under those circumstances. Of course, it's also not a given what
the options for other activities will be if you just go ahead and defer for a
year.

------
bpodgursky
I understand the frustration by the students, but I think there are a lot of
parts of society and the economy where we are going to have to assume good-
faith efforts to "make do" over the next year, and not get lost in the
legalese. I mean, are we also demanding refunds for:

\- Public schools? I pay a lot of property tax to public schools. They aren't
running, but teachers are still getting paid. If we demand refunds from
colleges, why can't we demand back-property-taxes?

\- Parks and recreation? I paid taxes for state and local parks which are shut
down, and I'm not allowed to use.

\- The court system? We paid taxes for a functioning police and justice
system, which where I am (Seattle) has basically shut down except for flat-out
murder.

\- Zoos, museums aquariums, and other civic institutions I can't access

I don't think it's fair or practical to try to make a tally of all the
services which can't be fully rendered. Institutions are stuck with enormous
bills for infrastructure they've built and staff they are (trying) to keep
paying. This isn't the time to let lawyers start siphoning money off of
institutions attempting in good faith to do what they were paid for.

------
isoprophlex
This is what you get in a litigious society where the "free market" sets
tuition prices. Of course students are pissed off at not getting the college
experience anymore, given how expensive some of those schools are.

What will be even more fun is watching the house of cards fall apart once the
lockdowns extend into the new year and international students stay home. Now
_there 's_ a cash drain no university can cope with.

~~~
sfj
> This is what you get in a litigious society where the "free market" sets
> tuition prices.

The high prices were an unintended(?) effect of guaranteed student loans. So,
a warped kind of free.

------
jccalhoun
I've taught some online classes for a few years and at least in my field, I
don't think they are very great. I don't feel like a teacher but a grader. I
post mini-lectures and other videos to try to get some connection with
students but I don't feel that it is as effective.

In a sense I was lucky when this quarantine in place happened because my
college does 8 week classes and we were on a break when things started.
Therefore, all the classes I'm teaching right now have been virtual/online
from the start and I didn't have to switch gears in the middle of a semester.
Even in these classes where we do live zoom meetings I don't really feel like
I know my students. It is better and more like a real class than online but
the added tech issues make it less than ideal.

------
jameslk
> Colleges, though, reject the idea that refunds are in order. Students are
> learning from the same professors who teach on campus, officials have said,
> and they’re still earning credits toward their degrees. Schools insist that,
> after being forced to close by their states, they’re still offering students
> a quality education.

In summary, colleges are only in the business of pimping professor time and
selling credits to a piece of paper. Apparently access to those expensive
campus buildings and all the friends you made along the way wasn't part of the
deal. Therefore, no refunds are necessary.

------
buboard
Colleges need to change their model and build a "facebook for rich students".
Memberships cost $1000 / month, pokes $100, by invitation only.

I 've heard that online classes do not work. Conferences do, however, in fact
i think they are preferable. And they get a ton more visibility and attendance
too

If there's something about university it's that the culture of curiosity,
studying and learning is contagious , and also there's the competitive element
which pushes students to perform better. I don't know how you would recreate
that in the virtual world. Perhaps with a lot of gamification

~~~
swiley
I think that’s already recreated in the virtual world by the communities
formed by autodidacts (including to some extent HN although that’s not exactly
the same.)

IMO: anything artificial is going to so filled with administrators avoiding
liability because of the complexity of human interaction that it will be
useless.

------
sandworm101
>> saying colleges are unfairly withholding refunds even while they rest on
endowments that often surpass $1 billion.

Not really applicable. Endowment funds ussually have guidelines attached. They
are not for general use and are certainly not used for paying refunds. Much of
the point of an endownment fund, as opposed to just handing over cash, is that
the fund is protected from lawsuits by students demanding their money back, or
anyone else making claims against the university. Endowed money is not the
university's property.

------
2muchcoffeeman
I read through quite a few replies and it seems like it’s all people whose
disciplines didn’t need special equipment.

I did physics. Good luck using a scanning electron microscope, or getting
access to an optics lab at home.

A lot of disciplines require specialised and expensive hardware, software or
equipment. Industrial design, medicine, electrical engineering, chemical
engineering. That’s the value add.

------
brightball
This is the expected outcome after I read this:

[https://anygoodthing.com/2020/03/12/please-do-a-bad-job-
of-p...](https://anygoodthing.com/2020/03/12/please-do-a-bad-job-of-putting-
your-courses-online/)

------
MisterBastahrd
My gf took 3 online courses this semester (planned). Not a single professor
had lectures to attend. They all just had a checklist of busy work and
readings and an email address to contact them if they had questions about an
assignment.

------
TACIXAT
I had an absolutely awful experience with the fast.ai "in person" course. I
sat through two lessons before realizing we were going to be seeing the rough
cut of the free version (e.g. them doing their intros 3x) and that there were
any office hours. In order to get a question answered 5 people had to like it.

Even worse, it was a certification but since it was so low touch the teachers
were not grading anything. I do not know what they were certifying, I guess
that you paid for the course. I withdrew and they gave me a pro-rated refund
that basically charged 300 dollars per class. Absolutely awful education
experience.

------
pbnjay
If these law firms really believe that they are acting like robin hood, taking
from the greedy universities and giving back to the students who really need
it, they'd be doing these suits pro bono so the students get every dollar they
are entitled to.

For some reason, I have a feeling that these firms will take a hefty fee and
students will STILL end up with the bill eventually...

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kazagistar
If we are still isolating to any extent in the fall, things are going to get
real tough. Might not be any incoming freshmen class.

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FireBeyond
> Ken McConnellogue, a spokesman for the University of Colorado, said it’s
> disappointing that people have been so quick to file lawsuits only weeks
> into the pandemic.

The country - and courts - might be surprised to learn that we've apparently
only been dealing with this since mid April.

------
dreamcompiler
IANAL but wouldn't most college tuition agreements have a _force majeure_
clause that would render such lawsuits pointless?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_majeure](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_majeure)

------
villgax
Now comes the once & for all battle between levelling the allure of MOOCs vs
in-person

------
hartator
If certain classes can’t be done online (require certain equipment or physical
projects to be built), why not delaying everything until they re-open?

It feels both university and students want to have the cake and eat it.

------
mhb
The intellectually honest thing would be for colleges to give a prorated
refund and make their case that the students (parents) donate it. Plus that
would make it tax deductible.

~~~
panzagl
Tuition is already deductible, if you don't take it as a direct tax credit.

~~~
mhb
I don't think so. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

~~~
panzagl
[https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/student-
loans/educatio...](https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/student-
loans/education-tax-credits/)

~~~
mhb
Yeah. That's a long way from _tuition is already deductible_. Some tuition is
deductible (or can be credited) if your income is below a limit. Up to $2,500.

It's disingenuous to use that as a reply to a post about the tax deductibility
of a contribution to a charity.

------
psim1
I honestly feel badly for colleges and universities that went to incredible
effort to accommodate students only to have it shoved back in their faces with
litigation. You know who likes remote education even less than students do?
Faculty. Advisors. Administrators. Lab techs. Basically everyone. Students are
getting their full value and more, while wearing their pajamas.

~~~
ColanR
I agree that no one likes remote classes, but there is no sense in which those
students are "getting their full value."

~~~
psim1
Is it reasonable to say "full value under the circumstances"?

I'm trying to understand the limits of entitlement in a pandemic scenario.

I live near a large (50,000 undergrad students) state university. They have
means to survive, but are losing money at an amazing rate right now. If
students come at the university with lawsuits and demand refunds en masse, it
will be bad for everyone -- including the students.

This situation is different, unique -- and should be treated differently than
"I didn't get exactly what I paid for," especially considering what went into
a best-possible-alternative workaround.

~~~
FireBeyond
So is it entitlement for students to be subsidizing the operating costs of a
multi billion dollar university (in many cases a private organization) with
their student loans?

------
tetris11
And so they should.

My experience at uni usually involved going to the lecture, not quite grasping
the rushed material, then heading to the computer lab after to stream a
YouTube video on the same topic to actually understand it.

Why was I going to the lectures then? Who knows, on the offhand chance I might
ask a question.

Now I'm on the other side of the looking glass, I see three types of uni
students - those who group collaborate and therefore are confident enough to
ask questions in class (because they no longer fear their peers), those who
are silent throughout because they do fear their peers, and those who are
silent throughout because they've already read the lecture notes.

The only ones who gain are the students who make use of this collaborative
environment to ask free questions.

TLDR - You pay for the environment. The lecture notes, the knowledge - all
exist on YouTube

~~~
jmspring
Horseshit.

The instructor has a serious impact on how the material is presented. I had
transform mathematics from David Huffman of Huffman coding fame at the same
time I had a similar physics math course.

Both got to the same end, but I only passed both because of the approach and
the notes I had from Huffman.

Everyone learns differently and that situation where a professor can convey
things on a way that clicks isn’t going to happen with a random YouTube video.

~~~
tetris11
You bring up David Huffman, but how many Huffman's and Feynman's are there out
there?

Many postdocs who teach are just beginning their academic careers and are
juggling running their analyses and creating their profiles that will bring
them fame, against their less rewarding teaching duties.

My academic has peaked, so I put more of myself into teaching and training and
often find it rewarding when I interact freely with a few keen individuals,
but the majority of students out there aren't keen. They're there because they
are forced to learn to my schedule and not theirs

~~~
peteri
There are enough of them, to be honest I passed my degree by the skin of my
teeth because I'd spent a year out in industry and found some of it a bit too
academic.

I do still however fondly remember my CS101 course with Richard Bornat (who I
thought was an excellent lecturer) and wish I'd taken more interest in the
lambda calculus elements of the curriculum (we had Peter Landin as head of
department) but at the point in time I was heading more down a C / embedded
systems / ASIC path.

------
1-6
I hope they find the textbooks unimpressive as well.

------
Rexxar
Why they aren't just asking some additional classes after the lockout ? Why
immediately ask for a refund after a clearly exceptional event for a
curriculum that last probably many years ?

~~~
DangitBobby
The deal has been altered. They paid for in-person instruction and interaction
with a professor and classmates, as well as numerous amenities and facilities,
all of which contribute to the college experience. All of which comes at a
hefty premium. Instead, they got online instruction, which is less valuable
(even when it comes to tuition prices), and typically involves little to no
instruction or interaction with a live professor. A partial refund does not
seem incredibly unreasonable, except that universities may not be able to
afford it.

~~~
nicbou
Without the benefits you named, I'd argue that you get almost no value out of
university. You end up paying a lot of money to teach yourself things. At that
point, I'd rather rely on the excellent (free) resources available on the
internet. Khan Academy did more for me than my university ever did.

------
master_yoda_1
I hope this overpriced higher education bubble would burst for good.

------
starpilot
Terrible HN comments in this thread...

~~~
forgotmylogin2
Yours is the worst of the bunch. If you have a gripe with some comment, reply
to it and explain why it's wrong.

------
techntoke
Why shouldn't students be willing to eat the costs in order to help save the
vulnerable population of COVID-19? Why is it the schools fault for this
happening?

------
raslah
As someone who finished a Baccalaureate online, I’d say these students simply
aren’t prepared for the mind shift to having to learn independently. Most of
my professors seemed to loathe having to teach an online class and merely
threw together a mountain of almost random assignments and research papers as
if to say, “if you can survive this, you can have a degree”. Most of my
courses didn’t even offer video lectures and were taught by low-paid adjuncts
that never responded to email. You were left alone to figure it out. It’s a
whole other ball game when you don’t have the deep support system of being on
campus. I hope this brings improvements to online education in general.

~~~
koheripbal
As part of my engineering degree, it wasn't all books and lectures. We had to
learn the machine-shop, operate the lathe construct a robot, mix chemicals in
organic chemistry lab, experiment with lasers in different mediums, wire hard
drives... etc...

A lot of that is hands on work. No Zoom session is going to make up for that.

