Lawsuit: UK should’ve refunded some tuition, fees after COVID-19 closed campus
The University of Kentucky should have reduced and refunded mandatory fees and tuition when it switched to online-only classes because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a student’s lawsuit argues.
The lawsuit filed Monday in Fayette Circuit Court on behalf of Peter Regard — a computer science major — seeks partial refunds for tuition and mandatory fees. Those fees typically help pay for additional class supplies and access to the university’s labs, gyms and other on-campus learning and recreational facilities. Most of those facilities were closed to students after the university switched to online classes, the lawsuit said.
Regard’s attorney seeks class-action status for the lawsuit to include every student enrolled during the past spring semester.
UK spokesperson Jay Blanton said the university has yet to receive the lawsuit and couldn’t specifically comment on it. Since instruction continued in online and remote formats when the classrooms were closed, there were no refunds of tuition and mandatory fees, he said.
Mandatory fees “support critical facilities and services that students have asked to support over the years and that remained available to them, such as mental health and wellness counseling,” Blanton said. “UK will vigorously defend its position in this matter.”
UK is the first school in the state to be sued for not reducing tuition during the pandemic-forced switch to virtual learning. But the university is by far not the first in the country. In recent months, angry students seeking tuition refunds have been filing lawsuits against their colleges and universities across the United States.
The lawsuit against UK argues that money paid by students for on-campus services ought to have been at least partially refunded after those services became unavailable due to the pandemic. The university breached its contracts with enrolled students and unlawfully enriched itself when it retained the money, the lawsuit states.
“UK’s decision to transition to online classes and to request or encourage students to leave campus were responsible decisions to make, but it is unfair and unlawful for UK to retain mandatory fees and to pass the losses on to the students and their families,” the lawsuit stated.
Mandatory fees are paid by every student and are used to help fund the operating cost of some facilities and student organizations on campus. According to a breakdown of the fees paid during the last school year, a full-time student with at least one class on campus paid $160 for student health services, $131.25 for the operation of the student center and $80 for use of the Johnson Center — a large, on-campus gym. Students also paid less than $20 for the operation of student organizations like student government, student activity planning boards and the student-run radio station, WRFL, and newspaper, the Kentucky Kernel.
The university moved to online-only courses in mid-March and stayed virtual through the end of the spring semester. Many campus facilities — like gyms — were closed, while one dining hall allowed students in on a limited, to-go-meal-only basis.
A few hundred students remained in on-campus dorms, while the vast majority moved out and returned home to complete the semester. The university partially refunded housing and dining fees to those students who paid to live in the dorms. The refunds cost UK nearly $14 million.
Andre Regard, the Lexington attorney who filed the suit, said that the specific dollar amount of mandatory fees that weren’t refunded would not be known until later in the evidence discovery process. According to the lawsuit, the university collected more than $20 million in mandatory fees for the past spring semester.
Regard said that the online learning experience his client received in the spring was not the same as the classroom experience with access to other students, professors and facilities for which the student paid tuition.
“To deprive the students of that is certainly a reduction in value to the students,” said Regard, who is related to the plaintiff.
For the past year, in-state undergraduate tuition per semester was $6,180 while out-of-state students paid $15,340. In-state graduate students paid $6,700, while out-of-state grad students paid almost $16,300.
UK faces a more than $70 million budget shortfall — most of which comes from an expected drop in freshman enrollment this fall. University officials projected last month that the university could lose $27 million in expected revenue.
Next week the university will provide its full fall reopening plans.
This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 2:43 PM.