Students Demanding Tuition Cuts at Colleges Where Teaching has Gone Online

Back in the spring, when colleges and universities sent students home after the start of the coronavirus pandemic and finished the rest of the semester online, many students were demanding partial refunds. Now that the fall semester is beginning and some schools are planning to just have online instruction, or gave up plans to have students on-campus for traditional classes are seeing outbreaks at other colleges and universities that reopened over the last couple of weeks, students are now demanding tuition discounts. Those calling for reduced tuition say online classes don’t give the same experience as in-person classes on campus, portraying them as awkward and providing little personal connection. But many schools are saying a tuition cut isn’t justified, some pointing to improvements they’ve made in online classes since the spring. There are some colleges that have reduced tuition prices after moving classes online, a cut of about 10 to 15 percent, including Georgetown and Princeton. But Harvard, for one, is standing firm on charging full tuition. Here’s the complete story from Associated Press.