The Complications of Studying Online amidst the Pandemic

Pirakasini Chandrasegar | September 1st, 2020

Undoubtedly, the last couple of months, in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, have been unprecedented for millions of post-secondary students around the world. Closing down campuses, revamping in-person education to an online arrangement, and escalating tuition fees, are some of the many changes post-secondary students presently handle. Through losing the requisite on-campus experience and acclimating to a virtual platform, one would anticipate having reduced tuition costs; however, in many universities, this has not been the case as post-secondary students continue to pay full tuition. Detailing online courses to be “inferior”(1), students contend that online learning is ineffective in comparison to experiences on-campus, yet despite these grievances, universities continue to impose increased tuition.

Latterly, students at Yale University attest to dealing with inadequate online courses and overbearing tuition costs, which has served as the foundation in the development of a class-action lawsuit against the university. This lawsuit, consisting of Yale students, is formed on the grounds of a breach in contract, whereby students claim that the university enforced full-tuition despite the transition to online schooling. Subsequently, students contended that Yale university fallaciously believed that their effective online courses could compensate for irreplaceable on-campus academic life. The lawsuits against Yale University embody increased tuition costs, which are especially unreasonable during the pandemic as students cannot ingress admittance to facilities, various materials, events, feedback and evaluations (2). Because of these circumstances, the lawsuit argues that students should not be paying full tuition as they are not acquiring sufficient educational experience. Students anticipated tuition costs to decrease as these on-campus academic experiences were unachievable, but the university reinforced students to maintain paying full tuition as if they were still experiencing education equivalent to on-campus experiences. The breach in the contract occurs when the university continues to believe that students are receiving a "comprehensive educational experience" through their "effective" online courses (3); when in reality this is misleading, as students did not have access to quintessential resources, experiences and facilities — thus gaining an inefficient and non-comprehensive educational experience. Consequently, students perpetuated extensive tuition costs designated for on-campus academic life, which is quite frankly, asymmetrical to what they virtually obtained.

Despite choosing to partake in on-campus academic life and necessitating virtual learning over preferred educational arrangements, students claim that Yale University failed to accommodate them with an ample educational experience, which the university guaranteed beforehand. Although Yale students understand that the pandemic has enforced necessary circumstances to take place, they wholeheartedly disagree with continuing to pay full tuition as the quality of these online courses and experiences do not coincide with Yale's promises. Legitimately, this class-action lawsuit is reasonable as Yale University is breaching its contract with individuals who are paying to take part in on-campus experiences (4). With this inability to reduce tuition costs to best suit current situations, Yale University maintains this breach in contract by pushing people to pay outrageous tuition costs for online courses that do not supersede the experiences achieved on campus. Forthwith, individuals who are paying extensive amounts for on-campus learning are likewise paying the same amount for virtual learning, which is exorbitant as they did not sign up for such methods.

Essentially, the lawsuit claims that students, for various reasons, chose to learn on campus, and yes because of obvious reasons these experiences were taken away from them, but at the very least, they expect a reduction in tuition costs as they did not wish to learn online. By failing to recognize that on-campus educational experiences, at one of the best schools in the world, is priceless, Yale University continues to breach their contract with those who pay for on-campus education through arguing that its online programs are effective and supposedly can efficiently substitute for the missed on-campus opportunities. Principally, Yale university continues to force students to pay the full cost of tuition, which is preferential as students are not receiving a full educational experience, therefore they are not experiencing everything that the tuition fee warrants. Ergo, Yale university argues that extensive tuition costs are justified as students are still receiving exposure to education in correspondence to on-campus experiences, which after much discussion is proven to be false.

Settling into new arrangements is never easy, but the accommodations delivered during such times can make a significant difference. Many universities have not done that for students. Extensive costs for supposedly effective substitutions, like online courses, cannot rectify lost on-campus experiences. Just as Yale students are experiencing, post-secondary students all around the world are undergoing severe financial distress as they are paying an extensive amount for a method of schooling they did not want. Yale University is one of the many universities facing class-action lawsuits based on a breach in contract, but this truly showcases that in such a critical time, universities have neglected to accommodate their students, and instead, put them in dire financial situations.

Endnotes

1. David Owens, "Yale Student Sues University Claiming Online Courses Were Inferior, Seeks Tuition Refund, Class Action Status," Courant.com, last modified August 4, 2020, https://www.courant.com/coronavirus/hc-news-coronavirus-student-sues-yale-20200804-eyr4lbjs2nhz7lapjgvrtnyyea-story.html.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid., par. 10.