By: Rusty Brooks
Angry college students and parents are demanding their money back for “subpar” online learning, at the same time universities are pushing for more signups as the fall semester might be cancelled as well, the NY Post reported.
AP Reported: Grainger Rickenbaker, a freshman who filed a class-action lawsuit against Drexel University in Philadelphia, said the online classes he is been taking are poor substitutes for classroom learning. There’s little interaction with students or professors, he said, and some classes are being taught almost entirely through recorded videos, with no live lecture or discussion.
“You just feel a little bit diminished,” said Rickenbaker, 21, of Charleston, South Carolina. “It’s just not the same experience I would be getting if I was at the campus.”
Class-action lawsuits demanding tuition refunds have been filed against at least 26 colleges, targeting prestigious private universities, including Brown, Columbia and Cornell, along with big public schools, including Michigan State, Purdue and the University of Colorado, Boulder, A.P reported.
Meanwhile, The N.Y Post reported: “The online learning options being offered to NYU students are subpar in practically every aspect, from the lack of facilities, materials, and access to faculty. Students have been deprived of the opportunity for collaborative learning and in-person dialogue, feedback, and critique,” the federal class action suit filed last month against NYU stated.
Christina Rynasko claims in a new lawsuit against New York University that her daughter, Emily, a musical theater major, is not getting what she paid for from the online classes and who paid $36,000 in tuition for the spring semester, is seeking a prorated refund.
Ken McConnellogue, a spokesman for the University of Colorado, said it is disappointing that people have been so quick to file lawsuits only weeks into the pandemic. He said the suits appear to be driven by a small number of “opportunistic” law firms, AP reported.
“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,” he said. “It’s different, no doubt. And it is 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”, McConnellogue told A.P
“You cannot keep money for services and access if you aren’t actually providing it,” said Roy Willey, a lawyer for the Anastopoulo Law Firm in South Carolina, which is representing students in more than a dozen cases told Associated Press. “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, universities have to tighten their belts and refund the money back to students and families who really need it.”
