Student Sues Byu

[bluebell]

22 minutes ago, Raingirl said:

I understand your point.

With Covid, there was no way this could have been anticipated, so everyone has had to scramble to make adjustments on the fly. 
 

I know that where I work, Administration has recognized these issues and have made adjustments to fees, etc.  They are also willing to speak to students about any Covid related concerns, and make what adjustments they can.   It’s probably not much different at BYU or elsewhere. 

That's true, but colleges probably should have anticipated that their costs for online classes wasn't exactly fair or reasonable a long time ago.  They've gotten away with the exorbitant fees for years.  Some pushback on the cost of a college degree, especially for online classes, is not a bad thing.

However, I'm not sure if the cost is the main crux of the suit, or if the student is just upset at his online class experience (which, given some of the online classes I've taken, wouldn't surprise me either).  It'll be interesting to see if any other information comes out and how the courts handle it all.  If they agree that the case has merit, then it will likely open the floodgates on more suits.  That could be a good thing in that we've needed college reform for a long time, but also a bad thing because colleges (especially those who are losing their sports income) are going to be suffering financially as it is.

[JamesBYoung]

The case is certainly practicable in court.

It will not be summarily dismissed.

[JAHS]

5 minutes ago, JamesBYoung said:

The case is certainly practicable in court.

It will not be summarily dismissed.

I am expecting some kind of settlement might be agreed on, like a refund of some of the tuition costs. 

[Stormin' Mormon]

The product that universities sell is not education, but credits that can be applied towards a credentialed degree. 

There's no way to prove, one way or the other, whether any given customer received an education.  He might have taken classes on topics he already knew.  He might have slept through class and guessed really well on the exams.  The professor may have taken pity on him and bumped his grade to an undeserved C-. 

He got his credits, he got what he paid for. 

[Scott Lloyd]

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I doubt it, but maybe one of our lawyers on this board could give us a hint.

Why not?

[Meadowchik]

26 minutes ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

The product that universities sell is not education, but credits that can be applied towards a credentialed degree. 

There's no way to prove, one way or the other, whether any given customer received an education.  He might have taken classes on topics he already knew.  He might have slept through class and guessed really well on the exams.  The professor may have taken pity on him and bumped his grade to an undeserved C-. 

He got his credits, he got what he paid for. 

This sounds like the fake online degrees people get warned about. 

[Scott Lloyd]

5 hours ago, bluebell said:

I'm wondering if this isn't an issue of feeling like the charges for online classes aren't fair and wanting that addressed?

I remember how taken back I was when I realized what I was being charged for an online class in Montana in 2012, where I would never step foot on campus.   I had to pay fees for computer usage, paper usage, recreational facilities usage, library usage, etc. even though the class was completely online and I had no intention of using the schools computers, library, copiers (which they make you pay for anyway), gym, or anything else on campus.  It really did feel like a scam and I'm not sure how it's exactly legal to charge someone (who might not even be in the same state as the school) for such things.

 

That’s a good point.
 

It’s analogous to charging someone the same price for an electronic edition of a book as for a print edition when the publisher has not had to stand the overhead of printing, binding, shipping, etc.  I’ve never really understood why that is. 

[Scott Lloyd]

6 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

This sounds like the fake online degrees people get warned about. 

Not the same thing at all. The issue there is an accredited degree vs a non-accredited one. 

[california boy]

31 minutes ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

The product that universities sell is not education, but credits that can be applied towards a credentialed degree. 

There's no way to prove, one way or the other, whether any given customer received an education.  He might have taken classes on topics he already knew.  He might have slept through class and guessed really well on the exams.  The professor may have taken pity on him and bumped his grade to an undeserved C-. 

He got his credits, he got what he paid for. 

You went to university not for knowledge, but a diploma?  I find that kinda sad.  Not everyone goes to college just for a degree.  I am actually in a field that could care less about a dipolma (advertising).  In all the years that I was working, I never had a single person ask me what college I went to or what degree I hold.  There is only one thing that mattered.  Show me your portfolio. Show me your creative ideas to solve marketing problems.  I learned how to do that while at BYU.  And even though I graduated with a BFA, no one ever cared except my parents.

A degree is suppose to just be a benchmark of the knowledge you received.  Without the education, it is pretty pointless.

 

[Meadowchik]

13 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Not the same thing at all. The issue there is an accredited degree vs a non-accredited one. 

The comparison works, inasmuch the poster is not valuing the education itself.

And accreditation can become an issue for schools that already have it.  Not necessarily immediately, but eventually.

Edited August 6, 2020 by Meadowchik

[Meadowchik]

4 minutes ago, california boy said:

You went to university not for knowledge, but a diploma?  I find that kinda sad.  Not everyone goes to college just for a degree.  I am actually in a field that could care less about a dipolma (advertising).  In all the years that I was working, I never had a single person ask me what college I went to or what degree I hold.  There is only one thing that mattered.  Show me your portfolio. Show me your creative ideas to solve marketing problems.  I learned how to do that while at BYU.  And even though I graduated with a BFA, no one ever cared except my parents.

A degree is suppose to just be a benchmark of the knowledge you received.  Without the education, it is pretty pointless.

 

Right. After lockdown, my school was initially going to issue the students passes and no grades. Then it thought again and we had exams remotely. I think this, demonstrated learning, was the essence of their decision, with any attendant concerns of accreditation included.

[bluebell]

50 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

That’s a good point.
 

It’s analogous to charging someone the same price for an electronic edition of a book as for a print edition when the publisher has not had to stand the overhead of printing, binding, shipping, etc.  I’ve never really understood why that is. 

Yes!  That drives me crazy!

[bluebell]

46 minutes ago, california boy said:

You went to university not for knowledge, but a diploma?  I find that kinda sad.  Not everyone goes to college just for a degree.  I am actually in a field that could care less about a dipolma (advertising).  In all the years that I was working, I never had a single person ask me what college I went to or what degree I hold.  There is only one thing that mattered.  Show me your portfolio. Show me your creative ideas to solve marketing problems.  I learned how to do that while at BYU.  And even though I graduated with a BFA, no one ever cared except my parents.

A degree is suppose to just be a benchmark of the knowledge you received.  Without the education, it is pretty pointless.

 

I don’t think he disagrees. I think stormin’ is just saying that there is no perfect way to show or measure the level of knowledge gained in a college class.

Grades attempt to do so but even they aren’t a perfect indicator because they are subject and depend on the professor.  Likewise credits don’t really show the level of proficiency in a subject as much as they show whether or not the student did everything the professor said they had to do to get credit. if the professor is just phoning it in, the student can still get the credit while being deficient in the subject.

That’s why it’s so dumb for some jobs to require degrees. A degree doesn’t really prove much or mean anything as to the level of knowledge and proficiency on its own, it just means that the student did what the college required to get it. 

[sunstoned]

Not all online programs are the same.  I teach at a state university, and their term for online is a self paced asynchronous course that is distance delivered. They also have a "live streaming" course option.  Which is distance delivered like the online option, but replaces the on-campus classroom with interactive virtual classes delivered with Zoom or MS Teams.  I prefer the live streaming option.  As a professor, I spend as much or more time and effort as I do with on-campus courses.  The reason is that student's work still has to be graded and feedback given, and lectures and activities still need to be created and presented.  Also, with an online or streaming , all material has to be laid out in detail and placed in the online course.  You can't get by with just publishing a syllabus and a schedule and then wing it in the classroom.

[Calm]

41 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

 As a professor, I spend as much or more time and effort as I do with on-campus courses.  The reason is that student's work still has to be graded and feedback given, and lectures and activities still need to be created and presented.  Also, with an online or streaming , all material has to be laid out in detail and placed in the online course.  You can't get by with just publishing a syllabus and a schedule and then wing it in the classroom.

That sounds like my husband’s process as well. He is saving on travel time, but had to invest a lot of time in learning the process and upgrading his home office for zooming or whatever he uses. 

Edited August 7, 2020 by Calm

[bluebell]

12 hours ago, sunstoned said:

Not all online programs are the same.  I teach at a state university, and their term for online is a self paced asynchronous course that is distance delivered. They also have a "live streaming" course option.  Which is distance delivered like the online option, but replaces the on-campus classroom with interactive virtual classes delivered with Zoom or MS Teams.  I prefer the live streaming option.  As a professor, I spend as much or more time and effort as I do with on-campus courses.  The reason is that student's work still has to be graded and feedback given, and lectures and activities still need to be created and presented.  Also, with an online or streaming , all material has to be laid out in detail and placed in the online course.  You can't get by with just publishing a syllabus and a schedule and then wing it in the classroom.

That sounds like a good way to do it.  

With my online classes (I think I took three or four), they all followed the same format.  Weekly reading assignment with a mandate that you post online at least twice during the week to 'discuss' the assignment with other class members.  Most of the time the teacher did not participate in any way, or interact with any of the discussion or the students, other than to make assignments.  

There were no tests but we did have to write a couple of papers (these were philosophy and history classes mostly).

[Rain]

On 8/6/2020 at 8:12 AM, HappyJackWagon said:

Colleges and universities are likely to see many lawsuits in the near future. Some of them will be well-deserved but they are in a tough spot financially.

For example, I have 3 kids in college. (well, one is getting ready to start this fall)  For my incoming freshman the school requires freshman to live in the dorms. That's about $1100 a month. At orientation last week they told us that even if in-person classes are cancelled the dorms will stay open no matter what. Therefore there will be no refunds for housing expenses, even though they require it BUT aren't allowing students into class. I'm not sure how that works. On campus dorms stay open even though on campus classes are cancelled. Seems like a desperate move to me and I can't imagine many parents/students will let that stand IF it happens.

I hate that rule. Many of the staff at my daughter's university felt the students do better living on campus.  I've known more than one family whose kids came home if they lived close by to study because the dorms were too loud and full of activity.  

One professor told my daughter he was struggling in his class because she lived at home and mom does all the chores and laundry.  He was stopped in his tracks when she told him she started doing her own laundry at 14.  

I'm very grateful they did away with the freshmen MUST live and eat on campus the year before she went.

[Rain]

On 8/6/2020 at 9:33 AM, bluebell said:

I'm wondering if this isn't an issue of feeling like the charges for online classes aren't fair and wanting that addressed?

I remember how taken back I was when I realized what I was being charged for an online class in Montana in 2012, where I would never step foot on campus.   I had to pay fees for computer usage, paper usage, recreational facilities usage, library usage, etc. even though the class was completely online and I had no intention of using the schools computers, library, copiers (which they make you pay for anyway), gym, or anything else on campus.  It really did feel like a scam and I'm not sure how it's exactly legal to charge someone (who might not even be in the same state as the school) for such things.

 

My husband was on campus twice in the 5 years he was going to get his masters degree (a class or 2 at a time). He paid an extra fee for online every semester.

[Kenngo1969]

On 8/6/2020 at 2:35 AM, Thinking said:

If BYU had not gone online, one of those opportunities and experiences might have been exposure to Covid-19. He probably would have sued in that scenario also.

Ding, ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!!!!  "Tell him what he's won, Bob!"

[Stormin' Mormon]

On 8/6/2020 at 4:28 PM, bluebell said:

I don’t think he disagrees. I think stormin’ is just saying that there is no perfect way to show or measure the level of knowledge gained in a college class.

Grades attempt to do so but even they aren’t a perfect indicator because they are subject and depend on the professor.  Likewise credits don’t really show the level of proficiency in a subject as much as they show whether or not the student did everything the professor said they had to do to get credit. if the professor is just phoning it in, the student can still get the credit while being deficient in the subject.

That’s why it’s so dumb for some jobs to require degrees. A degree doesn’t really prove much or mean anything as to the level of knowledge and proficiency on its own, it just means that the student did what the college required to get it. 

Exactly, and thank you.

 

I would also posit that the only difference between an autodidact and a college grad is that one has a university's seal of approval stamped across the top of his education and the other does not.  The two might be equally well-educated, but the college grad paid tens of thousands of dollars for his accredited education.

 

So, if a good education can be acquired for little more than the cost of text books, then only a small portion of the tens of thousands of dollars of tuition is for the education itself.  What the customer/student is paying for is the university's good name stamped across the top of his education.  In order for that stamp to maintain value, though, there has to be a real education underneath it.  And so it's in the best interest of both student and school to ensure that the education is real.

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by Stormin' Mormon
spelling corrections

[Calm]

Autodidacts in my experience generally lack the ability to self critique their own work, conclusions, etc as well as others’ work. Not that having a college degree guarantees critical thinking, but being able to measure sources’ reliability, credibility of arguments, noticing logical fallacies...generally less successful when one hasn’t been assessed by others trained in the field and had to listen to such critiques rather than just blow them off if they want. 
 

And having to deal with criticism of one’s conclusions in the field one is examining is helpful as well as while there is overlap, there are differences. For example, historians doing research probably don’t need to be as familiar with the problems of statistics as sociologists or psychologists need to be. 

[The Nehor]

On 8/6/2020 at 10:31 AM, Raingirl said:

Students were notified prior to Fall registration, so he knew exactly what he was signing up for. He thought he was being ripped off but chose to continue. 

Many people lack the strength of their convictions.