On March 13th, 2020, faced with the ongoing spread of the Coronavirus in San Diego and beyond, California State University announced their decision to move all classes to Zoom at least until April. The fact is all the classes of this semester will end on May 14 and nearly all of the classes will be transferred online. While we recognize and sympathize with the difficult position that the Coronavirus has put San Diego State University in, this transition to online classes represents a notable reduction in educational and instructional quality, which we fear will negatively affect our educational and professional outcomes moving forward. Further, we fear that the quality of education we will be receiving will not be commensurate with costly tuition payments made in January of this year.
In addition to a reduction in educational quality, other unintended consequences of the Coronavirus, including cancelled talks on campus, networking events, and reduced face-to-face time with professors and colleagues, threaten to negatively affect our short and long-term professional outcomes. This is a particularly worrying prospect for those of us graduating in 2020, as we will likely find ourselves graduating into a recession.
With this in mind, we call upon the University to address the reduction of educational quality that online classes represent, as well as the negative professional impacts of reduced networking opportunities and cancelled campus events, by providing students with a partial tuition reimbursement. Thank you for your reading and sharing.