A class action lawsuit filed on Monday in a federal court in Los Angeles says that the California State University system has not offered refunds to students for fees primarily used for on-campus services that are no longer available to students.
CSU campuses have been closed since the middle of the March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fresno State transferred to virtual instruction on March 11, and most campus offices had closed the following week.
“CSU’s decision to transition to online classes and to instruct students to leave campus were responsible decisions to make, but it is unfair and unlawful for CSU to retain fees and costs and to pass the losses on to the students and/or their families,” the lawsuit said.
The campus mandatory fees addressed in the lawsuit at CSU campuses include health facilities, health services, instructionally related activities, materials, services and facilities, student success fee, student association and student center.
According to the suit, depending on campus location, the annual fees paid by CSU students for the 2019-20 academic year ranged from $847 to $4,201.
At Fresno State, this includes a $113 health service fee, $3 facility fee, $18 student academic service fee, $132 instructionally related activities fee and $118 university student union fee for the 2020 spring semester.
The suit also goes on to suggest that based on information about stimulus funds for higher education, CSU will receive over $350 million.
According to the suit, many students were not eligible for the $1,200 stimulus payment and may only receive aid from the funds distributed to universities.
“The fact that students may receive certain taxpayer monies through a federal stimulus plan does not entitle CSU to retain fees that belong to plaintiff and the other class members and, indeed, these fees must be disgorged and returned to them,” the lawsuit said.
The plaintiff named in the case is Akayla Miller, a student at Sonoma State University and a citizen of California. The lawsuit is filed against the Board of Trustees of the California State University, which oversees CSU’s 23 campuses.
She’s represented by attorneys at Cowper Law PC, DiCello Levitt Gutzler LLC and Matthew S. Miller LLC.
“While both CSU and UC were initially responsible in closing their campuses,” said Adam Levitt, a partner at DiCello Levitt Gutzler, and co-counsel for the plaintiffs in a press release. “It is improper for them toattempt to retain what amounts to many millions of dollars in aggregate in campus fees they collected fromtheir students, even though they terminated the services that these fees covered.”
This suit includes campuses in Bakersfield, Channel Islands, Chico, Dominguez Hills, East Bay, Fresno, Fullerton, Humboldt, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Maritime, Monterey Bay, Northridge, Pomona, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, San Luis Obispo, San Marcos, Sonoma and Stanislaus.
This system serves more than 480,000 students in California.
Another class action lawsuit was filed in a federal court in Oakland against the University of California system for not refunding a prorated portion of certain student fees and costs.
Both lawsuits allege that the CSU and the UC systems are profiting from this pandemic.
“A college education is already a monumental expense for students and their families, and to essentially offer them no relief on these material expenditures, particularly during a time when millions of Americans are struggling financially, is not only tone-deaf but unfair and unlawful,” Levitt said. “Students’ lives have already been turned upside down by this crisis and the decisions of CSU and UC only serve to exacerbate their pain.”