Students are suing colleges to demand their tuition and fees back – CBS News
Liberty University should return room and board payments to students because most no longer live on campus or participate in student activities, a lawsuit filed this week argues.
Like many schools nationwide, Liberty switched to online-only instruction soon after the coronavirus pandemic reached campuses. While many colleges required students to vacate dorms to prevent the virus from spreading, Liberty allowed its students to stay. Most students chose to leave anyway, lawyers wrote in court documents.
“After moving off campus, the students also no longer received or could not otherwise obtain the services and activities from Liberty for which their fees for the semester paid,” the lawsuit states.
Liberty, a private evangelical university in Lynchburg, Virginia, has taken other measures to contain the virus. Those include banning school gatherings of 10 or more people, converting its meal plans to take-out only, ending all student organization activities, closing fitness centers and postponing graduation. The class action accuses the school of breach of contract, but does not specify the restitution students are seeking.