Nearly half a million undocumented students attend U.S. colleges and universities
At least 450,000 students who lack the legal authorization to live in the United States are attending a college or university here. That amounts to approximately 2% of the enrolled student population. “Of those students, about half are eligible for or are participating in Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program that allows immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children to study and work here and shields them from deportation.” Unauthorized students can’t receive federal financial aid, and many do not receive aid from state universities, making them particularly vulnerable to the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Source: Education Dive
Students have begun to sue schools for tuition refunds
The law firm behind a web site called collegerefund2020.com “is currently representing students in three class action lawsuits filed in the last two weeks against Drexel University, University of Miami and the Board of Regents of the University of Colorado, as calls from students for tuition and fee refunds grow stronger.” The lawsuits claim that the value of online classes is less than that of in-person classes and that “the decision by these institutions to use pass/fail grading systems this semester have diminished the value of the degrees they offer.” Similar lawsuits have been filed on behalf of students attending Liberty University and institutions in the Arizona university system. Those suits claim students paid fees for resources they were unable to use after their campuses were shut down.
Source: Inside Higher Ed
More younger Americans are worried student debt might affect their retirement plans
In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, the number of Americans under the age of 30 who are worried about their financial ability to attend college has increased. According to the results of a recent survey, “26 percent said they have withdrawn from their retirement account to pay for education costs, an increase of seven percentage points since January. More than three-quarters of respondents with student debt (76 percent) said education costs were the top barrier to saving for retirement, up four percentage points since January. Health-care costs were second at 71 percent, up six percentage points since January.” Among those with student debt, 38% said they’re most concerned about financing day-to-day living expenses during the pandemic.
Source: Inside Higher Ed
University of Missouri “pauses” its full-time MBA program
The University of Missouri’s Trulaske College of Business has announced that it will not be welcoming MBA students for its Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 entering classes. According to an email written by the school’s interim director of graduate studies, officials “have decided to temporarily pause the Crosby MBA Program and take a step back to strategically evaluate the delivery method and completion time.” Other schools have made similar decisions. In the past four years, for example, two top-50 ranked U.S. schools (the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Iowa) dropped their residential MBA programs.
Source: Poets & Quants