Then they can take out loans or go bankrupt.
I mean, if you paid for a Ferrari and the car dealer can only give you a Corolla, they owe you a refund - irrespective of how big their rent and salary bills may be.
These companies aren’t arbitrarily choosing to educate people remotely. They’re adapting to the situation.
Likewise, it would be unreasonable for employers to cut people’s compensation for working remotely under the assumption that remote work is less efficient and therefore the company deserves a refund.
That doesn't really matter though. Like, it sucks, but they're giving a much shittier product and charging full price. Your example about people being less productive is not relevant because there's no doubt that the quality of education is much worse.
Your assumption that there’s “no doubt” about the quality of education being worse is not a good assumption. Educators are working overtime to make the most of the remote learning situation.
Also some things are simply impossible to do remotely, like music lessons or chemistry labs.
Employed engineers working remotely is a really bad analogy because engineers are paid to be available on an ongoing basis. Contract workers are a much better fit. If they were a contract worker, contracted to complete a specific task, and they don't complete the task... they don't get paid. COVID or otherwise. There is a wealth of pretty reasonable legal literature of settling disputes over partial completion of work.
> "While closing campus and transitioning to online classes was the right thing for Defendants to do, this decision deprived Plaintiff and the other members of the Classes from recognizing the benefits of in-person instruction, access to campus facilities, student activities, and other benefits and services in exchange for which they had already paid fees and tuition."
Note things like "campus facilities". Obviously 0% of that thing that they paid for was provided. And it should be reimbursed.
But they're still only delivering a Corolla so you don't have to pay the price of the Ferrari they promised you
If you read the article, you’ll see that the Universities did give partial refunds. These students are demanding even more refunds, while still collecting the education.
The education is still delivered, just through a different medium. If we believe that engineers can work just as effectively remotely, why can’t we believe that educators and educate just as effectively remotely? It feels like HN is picking and choosing when remote is good vs. bad based on how it personally benefits the commenter.
There’s no reason to pay the sums the universities are charging considering you can get the same education from almost any university.
I think you’re arguing against something other than the Coronavirus and remote education situation at this point.
Also, as the students are going to be home anyway, the differences between universities shrink. If the education is somewhat similar in a university A and university B, but university A is five times more expensive during the normal times, why should the students of university A pay five times as much as the students at the university B. They have lost the reason why they pay so much for it.
1) In a normal situation, some people are equally productive or more productive working remotely, and they should be able to.
2) In the current situation, almost everyone is less productive working from home, because they weren’t prepared and they have to deal with other stresses (family at home, too small of a space, fear of infection, etc.)
3) In the current situation, educators are less able to teach online than they would in person in a normal situation, and similarly students aren’t able to learn as effectively.
It can both be true that working remotely in a normal situation should be an option while this situation makes it harder to get a good education.
It’s fairly elitist to declare that engineers are good at remote work while assuming that students are not.
You can’t make blanket statements about engineers while simultaneously arguing that students are too diverse for the same treatment.
I've come across more and more articles about adjunct professors in poverty over the years, so the brilliance (and the brilliants) is definitely missing from the experience.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/it-keeps-you-...
In any case, completely different scenarios. Except in very rare cases, employers don’t make huge upfront payments before the work is done. College students do.