Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds • Hacker News Board

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#241

Post by TACIXAT » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

I had an absolutely awful experience with the fast.ai "in person" course. I sat through two lessons before realizing we were going to be seeing the rough cut of the free version (e.g. them doing their intros 3x) and that there were any office hours. In order to get a question answered 5 people had to like it.

Even worse, it was a certification but since it was so low touch the teachers were not grading anything. I do not know what they were certifying, I guess that you paid for the course. I withdrew and they gave me a pro-rated refund that basically charged 300 dollars per class. Absolutely awful education experience.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#242

Post by psim1 » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

ColanR wrote: post #227

psim1 wrote: post #226

I honestly feel badly for colleges and universities that went to incredible effort to accommodate students only to have it shoved back in their faces with litigation. You know who likes remote education even less than students do? Faculty. Advisors. Administrators. Lab techs. Basically everyone. Students are getting their full value and more, while wearing their pajamas.

I agree that no one likes remote classes, but there is no sense in which those students are "getting their full value."

Is it reasonable to say "full value under the circumstances"?

I'm trying to understand the limits of entitlement in a pandemic scenario.

I live near a large (50,000 undergrad students) state university. They have means to survive, but are losing money at an amazing rate right now. If students come at the university with lawsuits and demand refunds en masse, it will be bad for everyone -- including the students.

This situation is different, unique -- and should be treated differently than "I didn't get exactly what I paid for," especially considering what went into a best-possible-alternative workaround.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#243

Post by pbnjay » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

If these law firms really believe that they are acting like robin hood, taking from the greedy universities and giving back to the students who really need it, they'd be doing these suits pro bono so the students get every dollar they are entitled to.

For some reason, I have a feeling that these firms will take a hefty fee and students will STILL end up with the bill eventually...

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#244

Post by threwawasy1228 » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

kyuudou wrote: post #236

neutronicus wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you aren't even mentioning the case of degree programs that are in some essential sense about learning to use equipment costing in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in some cases whose availability is strictly controlled by the US government. I got my undergrad in Nuclear Engineering, and I learned to use Gamma Ray Spectrometers costing easily 30,000 dollars and did Plasma Physics experiments in a…

Also, chemistry/biochemistry. How would the labs work? I mean, get real. For anything software, sure, that can be taught almost totally remotely. But most actual engineering disciplines just aren't going to have effective remote coursework with hands-on labs any time soon.

There is almost no demand for 'actual' engineering a ton of this is completely offshored into oblivion, my girlfriend has a degree in chemistry and now works in a bank. There is extremely little demand for everything outside of software.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#245

Post by Animats » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:30 PM UTC

MengerSponge wrote: post #238

saagarjha wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My sense is that major universities doing online stuff have video production crews (from Communications etc) and everything is heavily edited and redone. It's more like a television show than anything else. Much more preplanning, and interactions with the students are much more structured. For some large classes in certain universities, yes. In the rest it's a regular professor giving a live lecture who is now doin…

When someone says "The risks of returning do not approach the risks of not returning for most undergrad-age students" they mean this: "There will be more openings than usual for tenure-track jobs in a year"

Er, yes. The CDC is now predicting 100,000 US deaths for June.[1] The trend is upward.

[1] https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6926-mayhhsbriefing/...

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#246

Post by ocdtrekkie » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:31 PM UTC

My college extended the ability to drop the class for a full refund to nearly the end of the semester. No lawsuit needed. For schools refusing to do this, I absolutely think people should be suing though.

I am all for online education, but it's hit and miss how comparable it is. The course I'm taking at the moment is nearly exactly the same without it's in-class component: I wasn't even attending the in-person classes before the pandemic! But plenty of other classes I took were largely for the hands-on experience which couldn't be replicated over the web.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#247

Post by Wowfunhappy » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:35 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #232

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #224

I don't know what the implications would be on finances / resource allocation for the school, but IMO everyone's education should be "paused" right now, including K-12. If you were going to graduate in six months, and the Coronavirus ends up closing campus for six months, you'll now graduate in 12 months, after you've had your due time on campus. And that additional six months of schooling comes at no additional cost…

All students and pupils are forming a chain where each promotion is expected to move up one year, replaced by the next promotion. There ain't a pause capability in the educational system, things MUST move forward every year at a define schedule. If anything, that's a good example of what a "deadline" is. It can ignore a few months of disturbance, as demonstrated by long strikes or major events. It can't skip one cycl…

We can't skip a cycle, but we can move the students up even though they haven't actually completed their education?

Make no mistake, the situation sucks for everyone. But it seems to me that actually educating people should take priority over meeting an arbitrary deadline.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#248

Post by thomaslord » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:36 PM UTC

throwawayoverhe wrote: post #214

Mirioron wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are universities prepared for something like this though? Do they have some kind of pandemic insurance that will cover the costs of the entire student body if the government shuts the university down? Because I can see that being a very costly insurance.

They have endowments. The colleges/universities that aren't managed by complete idiots use those endowments to hedge exactly this sort of risk. There were a lot of articles over the past few years about various teeny tiny colleges investing their entire endowment in funds and yelling from the rooftops that they out-performed Harvard's endowment. The bill is going to come due. Over the next two years, a lot of small c…

The best way to treat an endowment is like a retirement fund, except the goal is for the institution to never die and therefore to never exhaust the endowment. If the endowment is invested and makes gains, the institution can grow the endowment (which is necessary for it not to be devalued by inflation over time) and also spend some of the returns.

While I wouldn't argue leaving endowments completely untouched in this situation is necessary, I think saying that "the colleges/universities that aren't managed by complete idiots use these endowments to hedge exactly this rot of risk" and criticizing them for investing their endowments is a dramatic oversimplification of the situation.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#249

Post by davesque » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

supernova87a wrote: post #2

I remember wondering aloud at MIT/Harvard putting their courses online for free for anyone to listen to, and saying, well what is the value add then of paying to physically go to college? I guess we're going to find out whether the networking, friends, social aspect is worth it. There's also something about the competitive aspect of seeing other people in person do better than you or have better ideas than you. Which…

> well what is the value add then of paying to physically go to college?

Ivy league and other high end colleges are much more a brand than they are a product.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#250

Post by saalweachter » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

xnyan wrote: post #128

eternauta3k wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small classes are the best. I had an intro to the Standard Model class which had 4 students and the teacher... possibly the most enjoyable class I've had. There's no other occasion where a teacher will dedicate so much time to you.

I had a very intense 6 person class learning Russian 12 hours a day for three months. One of the most incredible experiences of my life.

That sounds like one of those experiences where, at least for the first few weeks, you return home and promptly fall asleep, because your brain is too full for anything else.