Students please understand that this petition is not to SHAME our school. I am convinced that West Coast University nursing students who are currently enrolled in their last few terms are exceptionally trained for their future careers. This achievement would not be possible without WCU’s accomplished professors and staff members who passed their knowledge on to us.

President Donald Trump signed the CARES Act on March 27, 2020, funding our institute total of $11,797,821.00, however the school will be only disbursing $5,898,811.00. In addition, the additional $5,898,010.00 will be consistent with West Coast University’s student-centric culture, the University’s Administration will allocate 100% of this funding to our students for emergency relief funding.

Let’s compare this year to last year’s tuition charged. We have all been charged the same tuition fee for both years, but this time around our school has been profiting from the tuition, as they are not providing students with proper PPE, holding us back from our assigned clinical sites (which is included in our tuition fee) as well as impacted the CLINICAL PROFESSORS paychecks, due to shortage of hours on the field.

This petition is for students like myself who have exhausted all their funds and are now struggling to survive until graduation, due to the current pandemic. If you are paying out-of-pocket for books, technology fees, transportation, rent, and other necessities while currently being unemployed due to COVID-19 then this is the right petition for you to sign, as you are worthy of proper funding. West Coast University should show sympathy to their loyal students and provide them with sufficient aid, as well as compensate them for the changes brought on by the current pandemic. 

Background: Yearly tuition at West Coast University is roughly $34,000 for every ten months which covers only the cost of the courses. The courses include attending classrooms and clinical rotations. Due to the recent events of Covid-19 we have been held back from clinical rotations which is included in our tuition costs. At the same time WCU is asking us to find our own clinical sites because the hospitals that have been contracted with the University do not want to take liability of students being on their site and the possibility of contracting Covid-19 and neither does WCU. We are paying for a tuition to obtain comprehensive knowledge not for schooling that is unable to provide the necessary tools for us to obtain our degrees. The board of nursing requires certain amounts of hours to be completed at the clinical rotation sites before graduation and permitting students to take the NCLEX examination. In addition, we are required to do more work, which include “online modules’, which are not counted against the clinical hours. Furthermore, WCU continues mandating proctor examinations to be taken by the students in these stressful times for WCU to uphold their status quo in the nationwide rankings. Also, it has become more difficult to obtain loans in the current market to pay for full tuition costs even though we are not receiving the education we paid for. Personally, I have exhausted all my loans and still owe the school money while not getting the proper hands on education that I am paying for. We respectfully request that the part of our tuition that is related to clinical rotations be refunded back to us if the university is not willing to place us into clinical rotation sites where proper PPE is provided by either the school or the facility for our safety as well as hands on experience. In a recent e-mail sent to us by WCU, it was stated that the University is going to be receiving millions of dollars in aid. Due to this pandemic we are unable to work to pay for additional costs such as books, internet bills and technology that is required by the school in addition to paying rent and trying to survive. The University should do its part and reduce tuition for students since they are unable to provide us the proper hands on training as they they agreed to provide.