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A student has filed a class action lawsuit against Purdue University and its Board of Trustees challenging the Indiana school’s choice to charge students for a full semester’s tuition and fees, despite canceling all in-person classes and activities due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
The Purdue University class action lawsuit was filed by Zachary Church who says he is a senior undergraduate student at Purdue University studying engineering.
According to Church, his education was negatively affected by the university’s transition to online learning, but he was not compensated.
He says that he paid for the cost of his education entirely through student loans, including the expenses of tuition, school fees, meals, and other costs. Church explains that, because he is paying for his education through student loans, he incurs not only the expenses charged by the school but additional interest.
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The Purdue University class action lawsuit states that Church enrolled at Purdue for the Spring 2020 semester and lived on-campus at the beginning of the semester until March 2020. He says that he paid all of his expenses for the entire semester and signed a contract with the school that dictated the terms of his use of the on-campus housing.
Despite Church’s payment of tuition, fees, and housing costs, he says that had to transition to online learning and leave campus as part of the university’s efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Like many universities around the country, Purdue University was profoundly affected by the outbreak of COVID-19, says Church.
The plaintiff does not take issue with the university’s choice to cancel in-person classes, noting that it was an important step to help slow the spread of coronavirus. However, Church says that he does take issue with how the university failed to compensate students for the changes.
According to the plaintiff, in March 2020, Purdue University announced that all classes would be held online for the rest of the semester.
He says that at this point, the university instructed all students who lived in dormitories and on-campus housing to move out, with the exception of those students who had to remain on campus out of necessity.
The Purdue University COVID-19 refund class action lawsuit says that the university has not offered a refund for the tuition and fees paid by the students.
The only compensation available to students, says Church, was a $750 credit given to the students who had to move out of campus housing. Church says that this is not enough. He argues that the costs related to housing and other expenses paid by students is far greater.
The Purdue University class action lawsuit states that, like the university’s compensation for housing costs, their attempt to compensate students for meal plans was similarly insufficient. He claims that students were offered credits with which they could purchase future meals, but were not offered full reimbursement.
Similarly, Church argues that the online classes in which he is enrolled are not equivalent to his in-person classes. He notes that he is unable to finish his senior year engineering project of constructing an airplane.
Church stresses that, for his area of study, online classes cannot give him the same experiences as in-person learning. To support his claim that online learning is inferior to in-person learning, he cites research indicating that students learn less in an online setting.
The Purdue University class action lawsuit goes on to say that the school has not provided any reimbursement for tuition costs.
According to Church, many students and their families would not have chosen to enroll in Purdue if they had known that they would not have access to the activities and in-person classes advertised by the school.
To illustrate that the university should have provided reimbursement, Church notes that many other schools around the country that were forced to switch to online classes provided “adequate refunds” to students and their families.
Church says that, even if the university did not have a choice but to cancel in-person classes and send students home, it is illegal to retain funds for services that they did not provide. He argues that Purdue University should return appropriate fees and tuition costs to students and their families.
The Purdue student is represented by Richard E. Shevitz and Vess A. Miller of Cohen & Malad LLP; Jennifer Kraus-Czeisler, Sanford Dumain, Adam H. Cohen and Blake Yagman of MIllberg Phillips Grossman LLP; and by James Evangelista and David Worley at Evangelista Worley LLC.
The Purdue University COVID-19 Closure Class Action Lawsuit is Zachary Church v. Purdue University, et al., Case No. 4:20-cv-00025, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana.
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One thought on Purdue University Class Action Lawsuit Seeks Student Refunds
Purdue aka Kaplan (before they changed their name)did the same to me a few years ago I cancelled classes didn’t attend and they charged me full tuition and are holding transcripts hostage!