Thinking back to the beginning of the pandemic, all the way back to March of 2020, is strange.
I was in my junior year of high school, and I was starting to become burnt out beyond belief. I remember hoping every single day that something, anything would happen in order to let me slow down, take a break, and rest. When my wish was granted, I felt as if I’d been praying to a monkey’s paw.
Virtual learning at my southern Georgia public high school was a joke. Videos of lectures were posted on Google Classroom, we were sent quizzes, tests, and worksheets to fill out asynchronously, and school was a lonely chore. I wasn’t learning a thing. Although that did matter, as I had IB exams to take at the end of my senior year, in which I would be tested on things that I was learning during this “COVID break,” it didn’t really seem like it mattered. I mean, the IB exams were free, and I was going to a public high school–it wasn’t like I was paying $75,000 per year for an extremely diminished education.
Others, obviously, were not so lucky.
During the presentation, Dr. Eric Weeks mentioned that, in a survey of Emory students, at least one (if not many) requested a tuition reimbursement. In fact, one (Oxford College!) student filed a class action lawsuit against Emory requesting a full tuition refund for the virtual learning part of the semester, on the basis that the education that was provided was an “inadequate substitute for the tens of thousands of dollars paid in tuition for the semester.”
In hindsight, giving a tuition refund for the lackluster few months remaining in the spring semester seems almost obvious. The severe lack of preparation, the hardships in mental health, and the absence of any actual learning lend themselves to, at the very least, a partial tuition refund for the $26,500 students paid during the spring semester. However, it does make sense that the university likely saw this move as a slippery slope–if Emory had to return to classes virtually during the fall semester of 2020, what basis would they have for charging students for classes? And, in all fairness, classes were still happening, and professors still had to be paid. It’s a difficult question that I am certainly glad I did not have to wrestle with the answer to.
Either way, at a university that does its best to offer mental health support–but often falls short–I have found that money is something that is not discussed often enough when talking about student mental health. Although it may have set a “dangerous” precedence, when millions of Americans have lost their jobs due to COVID, doesn’t it make sense to offer families a bit of mental and financial reprieve for a singular semester? Dr. Glass often talks about the many worries that he sees students come into his office with, and he often lectures about how students should stop the “over-glorification of busy” and how we should stop comparing ourselves to others. However, when the university (the same one that costs almost $80,000/year) offers full ride scholarships only to the students who have made the most actionable changes within their community, how is it possible to not glorify business? When I open an assignment on Canvas and see my grade on a plot line, directly comparing me to my peers, is it even comparing myself to others when the software does it for me? After having my educational world mostly stopped for close to two years now, and with my Emory education costing as much as it does, why would I not do my best to be as involved as possible?
To me, it seems that many of the impacts of education came down upon students, with the university trying its hardest to ignore the one thing that most people are worried about: money.
Makalee, I really enjoyed your post this week and agree with everything you’ve stated. Even though I started Emory in the Fall of 2020, hearing about the upperclassmen being kicked out with short notice and no sort of financial support or reimbursement sounded like torture. I don’t even know what I would have done because I come from a low-income background, and my family lives in Minnesota; it would have been a mess, to say the least. One thing that I also remembered while reading your post is how tuition has been increasing and never once stayed the same or decreased. There was an increase between 2019 and 2020, another between 2020 and 2021, and again between 2021 and 2022. I remember feeling angry and feeling as if Emory only cared about making money rather than our education and resources. I just think that it’s ridiculous that the institution we pay $80,000 does not have the proper resources to help students in need, whether it’s during a pandemic or not.
Makalee: Thank you for your post. I think you have hit on a real conundrum and that is that our education system is part of a capitalist society and so money will always be at the center of most peoples concerns. That said, I recognize the impact the pandemic has has on students, but it has also impacted faculty and staff, many of whom were/are doing their best to serve students while also managing their own health and often the health of their families (many of whom are also students). It was (and maybe still is) a no win situation in some ways.
Makalee, you bring up a really great point about virtual learning in Southern Georgia. Especially with the public vs. private school sectors, I can imagine there were many differences between remote schooling for students. This obviously increases inequity, especially at such a pivotal time for students that experienced this in their senior year. I’m curious to see what research will come out to show the differences state to state, or even county to county.
The case ought to be interesting as it develops. A comparable case in federal courts Jones v. Tulane was just sent back to the district court to be heard after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the district court’s initial decision to shield Tulane from the litigation. So they’re not being thrown out.
This strikes a chord I mentioned in a recent post—an imbalance between what is asked of students and what is given. The sheer weight of debt placed on students creates a need for something extraordinary to be imparted during their brief chapters here. The perception of online education these last two years casts that imbalance into a particularly jarring light.
I tend to agree with Professor Trokka’s reply. The hyper-consumeristic nature of colleges today is worrisome. The sheer volume of capital coursing through our halls of learning beggars notions of scholarliness, of quiet dedication to the student, in favor of something decidedly more chauvinistic. Hundred-million-dollar annual budgets simply can’t be disconnected from the harsh costs passed down to the students.