Amidst COVID-19 higher education students seeking refunds and discounts
In the current coronavirus situation, tuition is on the minds of students and education institutions and how much fee is appropriate is up in the air. There have been calls nationally from student federations to reduce tuition, however, some major universities are not prepared to do so.
On the one hand, some students are not quite content with the online experience they’ve received so far and don’t feel they should be paying the same tuition for remote learning as they would if they were attending in-person classes on campus. On the other hand, education institutions are having to invest in remote and online learning models. Their costs are not going down in the way that students are perceiving them to be.
Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada has announced a 3% tuition increase for the upcoming year which has resulted in anger and frustration among students. Erica Seelemann, vice-president academic and external for the Dalhousie Student Union stated,
“Students have said that without access to the facilities, without access to the resources that they’re used to, they don’t want to pay the same tuition. They don’t have the same learning experience, so they shouldn’t have to pay the same fees.”
The pandemic has presented a serious test to the global higher education sector unseen before in our generation. Education institutions will have to move – in part or in whole – to online delivery while some students at least are unenthusiastic to shift to online studies as plans to return to campus is still in a flux.
