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. But what about refunds, asks Esha Sarai for Voice of America.

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 Pennsylvania State University, told VOA.

But while Penn State, like most universities 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 programmes 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.”
Full report on the VOA site