Three students so far have filed lawsuits in Oregon’s two largest schools recently. Caline Smith is suing Oregon and the other two students filing lawsuits are Danielle Pranger and Garrett Harris who are suing Oregon State. These students are upset about being charged full price, even though the colleges are online.

When the universities shut down their campus’ due to the pandemic, they did not refund the students at all. However, the colleges have agreed to refund some of the rooming and board fees that were charged. “In order to provide quality education now and in the future, we cannot discount tuition,” the University of Oregon states on its website. According to oregonlive.com, the complaints were filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court earlier this month. The suits did not specify how much was sought in damages.

Students allege that the tuition was lower for remote students using an “E-campus” program. In-person students had to pay anywhere $312 to $812 per credit and e-campus students were only paying around $224 to $360 per credit.

Whenever the in-person students were forced to do online learning, they were still being charged the higher price. However, the University of Oregon is saying, “The lawsuit is wrong on the law and the facts.” In addition the University of Oregon, “Despite what the lawsuit suggests, the university’s costs for delivering instruction have not decreased as a result of the pandemic.

Our faculty, as well as our academic and student staff, continue to serve students. In fact, our costs have increased due to a variety of new technology and infrastructure investments.”

These students are demanding partial tuition reimbursement for failing to deliver the quality of education students had initially paid for. Many of the lawsuits also mention that they are missing out on things like access to libraries, extracurricular activities, athletics, workshops, and more.