Student Union
- By Esha Sarai
US Universities Struggle to Reimburse Fees as Campuses Close
The priority for most university students in the United States is clear: to move their belongings off campus as quickly as possible and set up to take classes online.
As campuses and their satellites abroad close — many of them incrementally — students and parents are wondering how to pay for this rapid shift in learning.
"They're being very intentionally vague with their emails, because we can tell they don't have much figured out themselves," Lucia Macchi, a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, told VOA.
While we spoke, Macchi, who had been staying in Florida with her family over the spring break holiday, was on her way back to her dorm room at the University of Pennsylvania to gather her belongings — especially materials she would need to continue her classes remotely.
But while the University of Pennsylvania, like most schools across the country, is shutting down to quell the spread of the coronavirus, students say the policy on reimbursement for room and board is still unclear.
"They said that they could have a partial reimbursement or credit applied to next year," Macchi said. "They're not sure what exactly their programs are going to look like."
"But it won't be automatic," she said. "It will be something that the students have to be proactive about."
Room and board costs are not the only fees students and parents worry about losing. Besides meal plans, on-campus jobs, and campus activities fees, students also bear the financial burden of storing their items and buying expensive last-minute tickets to go home.
A glance at many university websites about coronavirus shows a number of plans for reimbursements of costs.
American University in Washington, D.C., has detailed its plans to financially assist students.
"Students do not need to apply for refunds. Student accounts will automatically produce an ACH refund to all students with banking information on file," the school's website reads, under a list of which costs will be refunded.
Many students trying to evacuate less-organized universities on short notice say they don't have time to wait in line at the financial aid office to have all their questions answered.
"Going into the financial aid office itself is a very time-consuming and exhausting thing for students to consider right now," Jordan Barton, class of 2023 at Harvard University in Massachusetts, told VOA.
Harvard said it will pro-rate room and board costs for students and apply a $200 credit for storage or travel.
But for students like Barton, who has to purchase a last-minute ticket to Middleton, Texas, $200 won't be enough. He says it's not clear whether students like him will see more of a reimbursement.
"I hope I can shoot an email here in a few days and see if I can get any reimbursement because otherwise it's going to be significantly difficult to have stable income over the course of the next few months," Barton added.
Parent groups on Facebook are sharing advice about how to apply for reimbursements through university websites.
Aside from all the costs and potential reimbursements, college students across the U.S. have taken to social media to remind universities that there are numerous barriers to simply shifting classes online.
"Not every college student has broadband at home. Not every college student can eat without the meal plan/work study," Em Ballou, a junior at Middlebury College in Vermont, wrote on Twitter.
"Coming to college is a source of humongous economic and housing stability for several months out of the year. Going home...puts an enormous strain on our families," Barton said.
Barton is still unsure how his work-study job will be affected at Harvard and is concerned about the burden he will place on his father, a single parent of two, without an additional income.
Some students have noted that online classes generally cost less than in-person ones. A petition started by a student from Indiana's Purdue University to reimburse tuition costs as well as room and board fees has more than 600 signatures.
Of course, in a few rare cases, students are praising their school's quick handling of the situation.
"Gotta say im super impressed with the way @DavidsonCollege is handling this situation," Ashly, class of 2022, wrote on Twitter, detailing that the North Carolina school which serves under 2,000 students is ensuring full pay for work-study students, providing laptops, free storage units, and airport shuttles among other amenities.
In most cases, U.S. universities and colleges followed similar trajectories, first announcing they would move classes online but that campus facilities would remain open, and then either all at once or through a rapid series of announcements, finally deciding the campuses would close entirely.
In the California Bay Area, six counties have issued a shelter-in-place order, meaning that students on campus are encouraged to remain in their dorms as opposed to moving out, even though the University of California, Berkeley has said all instruction will be remote for the rest of the semester.
Still, those choosing to move off campus for the rest of the semester are able to apply for a pro-rated refund of their room and board costs.
How quickly and efficiently colleges and universities will be able to deliver on promises of reimbursement is yet to be seen.
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- By VOA News
US is now the most desirable country for international students
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Pro-Palestinian protesters break through barricades to retake MIT encampment
Pro-Palestinian protesters who had been blocked by police from accessing an encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Monday broke through fencing, linked arms and encircled tents that remained there, as Columbia University canceled its university-wide commencement ceremony following weeks of pro-Palestinian protests.
Sam Ihns, a graduate student at MIT studying mechanical engineering and a member of MIT Jews for a Ceasefire, said the group has been at the encampment for the past two weeks and that they were calling for an end to the killing of thousands of people in Gaza.
"Specifically, our encampment is protesting MIT's direct research ties to the Israeli Ministry of Defense," he said.
Protesters also sat in the middle of Massachusetts Avenue, blocking the street during rush hour in the Boston area.
The demonstrations at Columbia have roiled its campus and officials said Monday that while it won't hold it's main ceremony, students will be able to celebrate at a series of smaller, school-based ceremonies this week and next.
The decision comes as universities around the country wrangle with how to handle commencements for students whose high school graduations were derailed by COVID-19 in 2020. Another campus shaken by protests, Emory University, announced Monday that it would move its commencement from its Atlanta campus to a suburban arena. Others, including the University of Michigan, Indiana University and Northeastern, have pulled off ceremonies with few disruptions.
Columbia's decision to cancel its main ceremonies scheduled for May 15 saves its president, Minouche Shafik, from having to deliver a commencement address in the same part of campus where police dismantled a protest encampment last week. The Ivy League school in upper Manhattan said it made the decision after discussions with students.
"Our students emphasized that these smaller-scale, school-based celebrations are most meaningful to them and their families," officials said.
Most of the ceremonies that had been scheduled for the south lawn of the main campus, where encampments were taken down last week, will take place about 8 kilometers (5 miles) north at Columbia's sports complex, officials said.
Speakers at some of Columbia's still-scheduled graduation ceremonies include Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright James Ijames and Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, director of the National Institutes of Health.
Columbia had already canceled in-person classes. More than 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had camped out on Columbia's green or occupied an academic building were arrested in recent weeks.
Similar encampments sprouted up elsewhere as universities struggled with where to draw the line between allowing free expression while maintaining safe and inclusive campuses.
The University of Southern California earlier canceled its main graduation ceremony. Students abandoned their camp at USC on Sunday after being surrounded by police and threatened with arrest.
Other universities have held graduation ceremonies with beefed-up security. The University of Michigan's ceremony was interrupted by chanting a few times Saturday. In Boston on Sunday, some students waved small Palestinian or Israeli flags at Northeastern University's commencement in Fenway Park.
Emory's ceremonies scheduled for May 13 will be held at the GasSouth Arena and Convocation Center in Duluth, almost 20 miles (30 kilometers) northeast of the university's Atlanta campus, President Gregory Fenves said in an open letter.
"Please know that this decision was not taken lightly," Fenves wrote. "It was made in close consultation with the Emory Police Department, security advisors and other agencies — each of which advised against holding commencement events on our campuses."
The 16,000-student university is one of many that has seen repeated protests stemming from the conflict that started Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages. Student protesters are calling on their schools to divest from companies that do business with Israel or otherwise contribute to the war effort.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of its inhabitants.
Hamas on Monday announced its acceptance of an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, but Israel said the deal did not meet its "core demands" and that it was pushing ahead with an assault on the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
"Cease-fires are temporary," said Selina Al-Shihabi, a Georgetown University sophomore who was taking part in a protest at George Washington. "There can be a cease-fire, but the U.S. government will continue to arm the Israeli military. We plan to be here until the university divests or until they drag us out of here."
At the University of California, San Diego, police cleared an encampment and arrested more than 64 people, including 40 students.
The University of California, Los Angeles, moved all classes online for the entire week due to ongoing disruptions following the dismantling of an encampment last week. The university police force reported 44 arrests but there were no specific details, UCLA spokesperson Eddie North-Hager said in an email to The Associated Press.
Schools are trying various tactics from appeasement to threats of disciplinary action to get protestors to take down encampments or move to campus areas where demonstrations would be less intrusive.
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago said in a Facebook post Sunday that it offered protesters "amnesty from academic sanction and trespassing charges" if they moved.
"Many protesters left the premises of their own accord after being notified by the police that they were trespassing and subject to arrest," the school said. "Those that remained were arrested after multiple warnings to leave, including some of whom we recognized as SAIC students."
A group of faculty and staff members at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill asked the administration for amnesty for any students who were arrested and suspended during recent protests. UNC Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine said in a media advisory that it would deliver a letter on behalf of more than 500 faculty who support the student activists.
Other universities took a different approach.
Harvard University's interim president, Alan Garber, warned students that those participating in a pro-Palestinian encampment in Harvard Yard could face "involuntary leave." That means they would not be allowed on campus, could lose their student housing and may not be able to take exams, Garber said.
Columbia University cancels main commencement after protests that roiled campus for weeks
Columbia University is canceling its large university-wide commencement ceremony amid ongoing pro-Palestinian protests but will hold smaller school-based ceremonies this week and next, the university announced Monday.
"Based on feedback from our students, we have decided to focus attention on our Class Days and school-level graduation ceremonies, where students are honored individually alongside their peers, and to forego the university-wide ceremony that is scheduled for May 15," Columbia officials said in a statement.
The protests stem from the conflict that started Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of its inhabitants.
The University of Southern California earlier canceled its main graduation ceremony while allowing other commencement activities to continue.
- By VOA News
Where Are Pro-Palestinian Campus Protests Happening?
Colleges in the U.S. have been rocked by a wave of campus protests calling for an end to the war in Gaza, and for U.S. colleges to divest from Israel.
The Wall Street Journal’s Steven Russolillo rounds up some of the most important ones. (April 2024)
Pro-Palestinian protests in US could impact 2024 election
Despite the fact that many of their encampments at university campuses have been dismantled, pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the United States are standing their ground. If the protests continue, some analysts say they could have an impact on the 2024 presidential election. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains.
