![]() Matt Miller, an attorney whose firm is representing Liberty and Arizona students, said the anonymous Liberty student is worried about retaliation from officials for speaking out against the university. An anonymous student filed the Liberty lawsuit. For example, he noted that tuition for Drexel’s online bachelor’s degree program in business administration is 40 percent less than the rate for the on-campus program.Īn updated version of the Arizona lawsuit filed on April 15 names eight students. He pointed to the significant price differences between some online and in-person classes as examples of the lower costs of providing online instruction. “That is not fair, it is not right, and they should be held accountable.” “This is a national problem where colleges and universities with endowments in the hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars are passing the entire burden of the pandemic onto students and their families,” Willey wrote. The firm created because it is receiving numerous inquiries for legal representation, he said. Roy Willey IV, a lawyer with the Anastopoulo Law Firm, said in an email that the firm is investigating “dozens” of other potential cases across the country where students claim colleges owe them refunds. Grainger Rickenbaker, who attends Drexel, and Adelaide Dixon, a student at Miami, both live in South Carolina, and did not reply to requests for comment sent through Facebook. The universities have failed to deliver on promises of in-person instruction and campus life, which the University of Miami touts as “a world of interaction with other students” and Drexel promotes as “experiential learning,” according to the lawsuits filed in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, Charleston division. The five universities named in the lawsuits are committing "breach of contract" and receiving “unjust enrichment” from tuition and fee payments that won’t go toward services that benefit students, according to the lawsuits. ![]() “Similar class-action suits are pending against other schools, and such claims will no doubt be made against other higher education institutions that changed how they operate and deliver services to students in the face of COVID-19.” “While it’s not surprising that plaintiff class action attorneys would seek to profit from a public health crisis, we don’t believe this law firm or its single client speaks for the vast majority of our students,” the statement said. The lawsuit against Liberty is “without merit,” the university said in a written statement. Liberty, which allowed students to return to campus following the university's spring break, is providing $1,000 to students who moved out of its campus residence halls, according to a university spokesman. Students demanded universities return any "unused" fees, "proportionate to the amount of time that remained in the spring 2020 semester when classes moved online," according to the Arizona lawsuit. The lawsuits claim students paid various fees - recreation, health services, room and board, and meal plans - for resources they did not use after college administrators shut down campuses to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Separate class action lawsuits against the Arizona Board of Regents and Liberty University were filed on behalf of students that attend one of the three institutions in the Arizona university system or the Christian liberal arts university in Lynchburg, Va. The lawsuits claim they represent thousands of students enrolled at the universities. The lawsuits also contend that the decision by these institutions to use pass/fail grading systems this semester have diminished the value of the degrees they offer. The lawsuits claim that online classes don't have equal value to in-person classes and are not worth the tuition that students paid for on-campus classes. ![]() It is currently representing students in three class action lawsuits filed in the last two weeks against Drexel University, University of Miami and the Board of Regents of the University of Colorado, as calls from students for tuition and fee refunds grow stronger. The advertisement by the Anastopoulo Law Firm, which has offices throughout South Carolina, appears to have struck a chord. The website was created by a law firm currently capitalizing on the growing anger and activism by students - and indignant parents, too - who believe they're owed partial tuition and fee refunds for semesters cut short, courses moved online and off-campus, and unused housing and meal plans, among other disruptions that occurred at colleges and universities across the country in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. ![]() ![]() “Are you a college student who was forced to leave campus? You may be entitled to compensation,” a notice on announces. ![]()
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