College Students Demand Tuition Refund Amid Pandemic

College Students Demand Tuition Refund Amid Pandemic

Opinion By Mieko Yamamoto

“Taking online classes is like watching Khan Academy.”

Students demand a tuition refund. With COVID-19 came the transition of many schools into fully online learning that required full tuition, and hybrid schools requiring remote students to pay the same cost as students studying in person.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, students across the U.S. have filed over 100 lawsuits demanding tuition refunds. Students are unsatisfied with the compromised quality of their education amidst the pandemic.

I, as a remote asynchronous student, can attest to the difficulty in engaging with material on a tangible level.

Many public and private institutions argue that the quality of online education is significantly lower than in in-person classes.

I won’t go to say that it is unethical for colleges to demand the same tuition payment.

However, a lack of tuition cuts has prompted students to question the quality of their college experience. “What does tuition pay for, if not the venerated collegiate experience?”

A couple of weeks ago, I had a meeting with the student leaders of the International Student Programs (ISP). We gathered together to talk a little about what our semester has been like so far. Remote students were exhausted.

Instead of moving about in classrooms as one would in a normal college setting, remote students felt stuck in one place and on our computer screens all day to not only watch recordings but to do the assignments and required readings too.

Not only is eLearning physically draining, but students are also unable to have face-to-face conversations nor participate in campus activities. Experiences just seemed impossible to replicate in a virtual setting.

For students outside the United States, studying in-person wasn’t an option.

To ensure a safe opening of school for the semester, colleges encouraged individuals with health risks to stay home. Many students, therefore, chose to study remotely to save on tuition costs. Although student-loan debt disproportionately affects those of low-income students and families, many colleges seemed to care little. For many students, it felt they lost their hold on both their campus experience and money.

The Wall Street Journal put it this way,

“Would you pay $75,000 for front-row seats to a Beyoncé concert and be satisfied with a livestream instead?”

Wheaton is an example of a college that continues to strive for excellence in prioritizing its students. However, many colleges have failed to carry out their philosophy.

My semester online has come with mental, emotional, and physical challenges in all its different forms and although I have yet to complain about the tuition cost myself, I won’t lie and say it hasn’t been hard.

My point is not to ask for a lower tuition cost. Instead, I seek to address the experiences of students in higher education whose life has been deeply affected by the pandemic, students in need of tuition refund.

I stand with the students who are struggling to make amends with the financial situation they are in.

Homeschooler in the Real World

Emma Folts, a sophomore at Wheaton College, shares her experience about her transition into college and how homeschool has both helped and hindered her.
How has your homeschool experience benefitted you, especially in your transition into college?
I think the one thing that homeschooling did that was really helpful as I entered college was that it taught me time management. As a homeschooler I had the same freedom as a college student has to put things off during the day and go see a friend instead. Since I had that experience, I knew the cost of that.
Also, personal responsibility and accountability with assignments. I feel like a lot of the other students had more expectations for gentler grading and that the professor would give them retakes or extensions, but that wasn’t something that ever happened to me in school. That learning curve wasn’t added because I never had it the other way. I think another thing was that because I was homeschooled, I was familiar with the format of teaching and then studying on my own.
Did you see any issues with your transition socially?
I think that homeschooling had two ramifications for me socially. One was helpful, one was hurtful.
It was really helpful because as a homeschooler, I had spent a lot of time realizing and developing who I was as a person and learning to recognize people who were being themselves, and those were the people I sought out as friends. Friendship as a homeschooler takes a lot more investment. I knew I was choosier with my friends which made me a lot less anxious and a lot more content.
The only real negative impact of the social bit was that I was really used to getting to choose the time I got to spend with people. As a homeschooler I spent a lot of time with people, but that time was controlled by me. As a college student, I found that you can’t really control the time you spend with people and alone time is not really available. Learning to deal with that was a lot harder than anticipated.
Any last comments on homeschool and how it has affected your college experience?
I think homeschooling is really helpful, however it does take a slightly increased amount of advocacy with your peers when you’re entering into college. I think a lot of people come in with certain assumptions about homeschool, especially students. You’re going to get a lot of, ‘oh my gosh, you don’t seem like a homeschooled person!’ [You can’t] take that too personally and explain your experience so that friends can understand it’s an important piece of you, though it might not look like the homeschooling that they’ve seen.
My encouragement to anyone who is a homeschooler transitioning into college is to realize the benefit that you have having been homeschooled, and to realize that the bit of advocacy and explaining that you need to do with your peers is totally normal and that it’s not a big deal. Once they understand your experience, it’s not something I’ve experienced being looked down on for.