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Comment by psim1 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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

I've always been kind of autodidactic, so maybe this might not be the opinion of everyone. But I think apart from the degree signaling my employability, meeting and working with smart people was the main benefit of university.

If it's all online you've lost this important place to connect with others. What you learn is basically available for a fraction of the price. It's only the degree that you're left with basically.

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.

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?

My University is still charging a "campus activities fee" of $800 that is meant to cover our gym access, intramural sports, tickets to basketball games, etc. All of those activities are obviously cancelled, but they kept the fee. How am I getting "full value" for that $800? Not to mention the $18,000 in tuition which includes access to our libraries, computer lab, maker space, and other campus facilities, which again are all inaccessible. I understand financial planning for colleges is difficult and they likely couldn't refund the entire student body without the university collapsing, but to say I'm getting "full value and more" is clearly wrong and unhelpful to the current discussion.

Local university put as much library material online as possible and is doing check-out-by-mail.

Computer clusters that were previously on-site only were reconfigured with a Citrix-like access.

Gyms, no. Of course not. Maybe a refund of those kinds of fees is reasonable.

I've been downvoted here so I can see that my view is unpopular. I think the university, at least the one I am familiar with, is doing everything short of welcoming students to campus in order to make the best experience for the students.

See, this may be the experience that you have, but for plenty of students its not.

At a UC, we are paying ~1,000 dollars for services that simply don't exist. And don't get me started on out-of-state students. Add a zero on to that figure. These services, which have all been shut down include: shuttles, gyms, libraries, computer labs. We are pissed. Nothing has been changed from their usual online services for libraries, check out by mail isn't a thing. Computer access hasn't changed. And our school has not, and does not plant to refund any money. Keep in mind that they received $38 million from the government as part of the cares act, half of which was supposed to be given directly to students ASAP. Nothing has been said about that money.

I hope you can see why we are mad, and why we think the university isn't doing enough to address our concerns.

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