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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Survey: Social integration, career prep are important to international students
A recent survey of international students in the United States found that before starting school, they were concerned about personal safety, making friends and feeling homesick.
Inside Higher Ed reports that international students want specialized orientations, peer connections, career preparation and job placement to help make their college experiences successful. (July 2024)
US advisory council ends Nigeria visit, signs student exchange deal
Members of a U.S. presidential advisory council have approved a student exchange deal between an American college and a Nigerian university as part of the council's effort to strengthen collaboration on education, health, entrepreneurship and development between Africa and Africans living abroad.
The council also visited a health facility supported by the United States Agency for International Development in the capital.
Nigerian authorities and visitors chatted with members of the U.S President's Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement as they toured a healthcare facility in Karu, a suburb of Abuja, on the last day of the council's three-day visit to Abuja and Lagos.
The facility is one of many supported by the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, to improve the management of childhood illnesses, family planning, immunization and delivery.
The tour was part of the council's effort to promote African diaspora-led investments in technology entrepreneurship, education and healthcare delivery.
"They're doing a phenomenal job there, it really gave us a sense of what the healthcare system is in Nigeria," said Deniece Laurent-Mantey, executive director of the advisory council. "This is our first trip as a council to the continent and we chose Nigeria for a reason — the diaspora in Nigeria is very active, very influential, and they're really a source of strength when it comes to our U.S.-Africa policy. And so for us coming to Nigeria was very intentional."
The council was created by President Joe Biden in September to improve collaboration between Africa and its diaspora in terms of economic and social development.
Akila Udoji, manager of the Primary Healthcare Centre of Karu, said officials in Nigeria were pleased that the council members were able to visit.
"We're happy that they have seen what the money they have given to us to work with has been used to do, because they have been able to assist us in capacity-building, trainings, equipment supply and the makeover of the facility," Udoji said.
Earlier, the council signed a deal for a student exchange program between Spelman College in the southern U.S. city of Atlanta and Nigeria's University of Lagos.
Laurent-Mantey said education exchanges are one of the council's top priorities.
"In Lagos, we had the president of Spelman College — she's also a member of our council — she signed an agreement with the University of Lagos to further education exchange programs in STEM and creative industries between those two universities," Laurent-Mantey said. "And I think for us it's very important, because Spelman College is a historically Black university, and so here we are promoting the importance of collaboration between African Americans and Africans."
In March, the advisory council adopted its first set of recommendations for the U.S. president, including the student exchange initiative, advocating for more U.S. government support for Africa, climate-focused initiatives, and improving U.S. visa access for Africans.
The council met with Nigerian health and foreign affairs officials during the visit before leaving the country on Wednesday.
American Academy of the Arts College announces closure
The American Academy of Art College in Chicago announced it would be closing after 101 years of preparing students for careers in art and illustration.
WTTW news reported that like other art colleges, the academy saw enrollment drop after the pandemic, and officials made the decision to close the college last month. (July 2024)
5 killed, dozens injured in clashes over Bangladesh jobs quota system
At least 5 people were killed and dozens injured in two separate incidents in Bangladesh as violence continued Tuesday on university campuses in the nation's capital and elsewhere over a government jobs quota system, local media reports said quoting officials.
At least three of the dead were students and one was a pedestrian, the media reports said. Another man who died in Dhaka remained unidentified.
The deaths were reported Tuesday after overnight violence at a public university near Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. The violence involved members of a pro-government student body and other students, when police fired tear gas and charged the protesters with batons during the clashes, which spread at Jahangir Nagar University in Savar, outside Dhaka, according to students and authorities.
Protesters have been demanding an end to a quota reserved for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971, which allows them to take up 30% of governmental jobs.
They argue that quota appointments are discriminatory and should be merit-based. Some said the current system benefits groups supporting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Some Cabinet ministers criticized the protesters, saying they played on students' emotions.
The Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily newspaper reported that one person died in Dhaka and three others, including a pedestrian, were killed after they suffered injuries during violence in Chattogram, a southeastern district, on Tuesday.
Prothom Alo and other media reports also said that a 22-year-old protester died in the northern district of Rangpur.
Details of the casualties could not be confirmed immediately.
While job opportunities have expanded in Bangladesh's private sector, many find government jobs stable and lucrative. Each year, some 3,000 such jobs open up to nearly 400,000 graduates.
Hasina said Tuesday that war veterans — commonly known as "freedom fighters" — should receive the highest respect for their sacrifice in 1971 regardless of their current political ideologies.
"Abandoning the dream of their own life, leaving behind their families, parents and everything, they joined the war with whatever they had," she said during an event at her office in Dhaka.
Protesters gathered in front of the university's official residence of the vice chancellor early Tuesday when violence broke out. Demonstrators accused the Bangladesh Chhatra League, a student wing of Hasina's ruling Awami League party, of attacking their "peaceful protests." According to local media reports, police and the ruling party-backed student wing attacked the protesters.
But Abdullahil Kafi, a senior police official, told the country's leading English-language newspaper Daily Star that they fired tear gas and "blank rounds" as protesters attacked the police. He said up to 15 police officers were injured.
More than 50 people were treated at Enam Medical College Hospital near Jahangir Nagar University as the violence continued for hours, said Ali Bin Solaiman, a medical officer of the hospital. He said at least 30 of them suffered pellet wounds.
On Monday, violence also spread at Dhaka University, the country's leading public university, as clashes gripped the campus in the capital. More than 100 students were injured in the clashes, police said.
On Tuesday, protesters blocked railways and some highways across the country, and in Dhaka, they halted traffic in many areas as they vowed to continue demonstrating until the demands were met.
Local media said police forces were spread across the capital to safeguard the peace.
Swapon, a protester and student at Dhaka University who gave only his first name, said they want the "rational reformation of the quota scheme." He said that after studying for six years, if he can't find a job, "it will cause me and my family to suffer."
Protesters say they are apolitical, but leaders of the ruling parties accused the opposition of using the demonstrations for political gains.
A ruling party-backed student activist, who refused to give his name, told The Associated Press that the protesters with the help of "goons" of the opposition's Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami party vandalized their rooms at the student dormitories near the Curzon Hall of Dhaka University.
The family-of-the-veterans quota system was halted following a court order after mass student protests in 2018. But last month, Bangladesh's High Court nulled the decision to reinstate the system once more, angering scores of students and triggering protests.
Last week, the Supreme Court suspended the High Court's order for four weeks and the chief justice asked protesting students to return to their classes, saying the court would issue a decision in four weeks.
However, the protests have continued daily, halting traffic in Dhaka.
The quota system also reserves government jobs for women, disabled people and ethnic minority groups, but students have protested against only the veterans system.
Hasina maintained power in an election in January that was again boycotted by the country's main opposition party and its allies due to Hasina's refusal to step down and hand over power to a caretaker government to oversee the election.
Her party favors keeping the quota for the families of the 1971 war heroes after her Awami League party, under the leadership of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, led the independence war with the help of India. Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup in 1975.
Police open hazing investigation after Dartmouth student found dead
Police have opened a hazing investigation after a Dartmouth College student was found dead in a river in early July.
Police received a tip that hazing was involved, and there was evidence that alcohol might have been involved in the death, USA Today reported. (July 2024)
