On Monday March 16, 2020, Colorado State University announced the transition to online courses for the remainder of the semester. While this was the right decision in order to protect students and the greater community from the spread of the coronavirus, this decision has the potential to greatly impact the quality of instruction we receive and impose unfair challenges to every student. While online education can be valuable, it is neither what we signed up for nor is it what we paid for. Many of us have made great sacrifices to invest in a college education; however, many of us did not take out loans to study online this semester. Therefore, I am requesting the University consider partial tuition reimbursements to compensate us for not delivering in full the on-campus courses we registered for this semester.

We would like to reiterate that Colorado State University’s decision was the right one; however, it is the University’s responsibility to uphold the quality of education we receive, and frankly, the transition to online learning gives us, the students, a disadvantage. Online learning is not comparable to the value of in-person lectures, labs, discussions, and more. Nor does online learning allow for the same professional development and networking opportunities that on-campus learning provides. 

We call upon Colorado State University to recognize our concerns regarding the impact of their decisions on our education and future outcomes both academically and professionally. It is only fair that Colorado State University works with us to ensure not only our academic success, but also fair cost of attendance, which they can do in part by providing us with partial tuition reimbursement. Thank you for reading and sharing.