George Washington University Settles COVID-19 Tuition Refund Lawsuit for $5.4 Million

The campus of George Washington University is seen as classes were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in Washington, DC, May 7, 2020. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

George Washington University (GW) has reached a $5.4 million settlement with former students who accused the institution of breaching its contract when they were sent home to attend classes online at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Under the terms of the settlement agreement, approved on Wednesday by a federal judge in the District of Columbia, each of the four student plaintiffs will receive $10,000. After covering attorney fees and expenses of up to $1,782,000, the rest of the settlement fund will be distributed as tuition refunds among approximately 18,000 students attending online classes during the spring semester of 2020.

Each student who studied online that semester is expected to receive about $193, according to a statement notifying eligible recipients of the decision.

In the notice, the university stressed that the settlement “is not an admission of wrongdoing,” denies all allegations of wrongdoing, and “disclaims all liability with regard to all claims in the lawsuit.”

In a statement to student newspaper The GW Hatchet, a spokesperson for the university said the institution “celebrates its quick transition” to online instruction in March 2020 in accordance with the District of Columbia’s COVID lockdown measures.

“The university has agreed to a settlement of the class action lawsuit regarding the transition to remote instruction during the Spring 2020 semester,” GW spokesperson Julia Metjian told The Hatchet. “GW, like most universities around the country, was required to stop in-person instruction and activities during the Spring 2020 semester.”

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Wednesday’s settlement ended a legal battle that stretched for three years. The initial lawsuit was filed in 2020 by GW parent Mark Shaffer, who demanded that the university give his daughter, as well as all students, a refund of tuition, fees, and room and board payments for the spring 2020 semester.

“Despite sending students home and closing its campuses, [the university] continues to charge for tuition and fees as if nothing has changed, continuing to reap the financial benefit of millions of dollars from students,” the father’s initial complaint stated.

In March 2021, the D.C. District Court dismissed Mr. Shaffer’s tuition and course fee refund requests. A year later, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit partially overturned that decision, sending the case back down for further litigation.

In the 2022 appeals court ruling, Senior Circuit Judge Harry Edwards ordered the district court to review a similar lawsuit against the neighboring American University and reconsider whether the universities’ failure to issue tuition refunds after switching to online learning constitutes a breach of contract.

“The universities will likely have compelling arguments to offer that the pandemic and resulting government shutdown orders discharged their duties to perform these alleged promises,” Judge Edwards, a Jimmy Carter appointee, said in the opinion. “However, because the universities have not raised any such defense before this court, we leave the issue to the District Courts to resolve in the first instance.”

The judge also directed the district court to reconsider whether the universities unfairly enriched themselves by transitioning to remote instruction when online courses were typically offered at a lower rate.

“There is much in the record to suggest that the Universities did the best they could to protect and advance their students’ educational interests,” he wrote. “But determining whether the transition to online learning resulted in a net enrichment to GW and American is a fact-intensive question inappropriate for resolution at the motion-to-dismiss stage.”

Lawsuits, Settlements Over COVID Tuition Reimbursement

In the year since COVID lockdown policies pushed colleges and universities across the country to close their brick-and-mortar campuses, lawyers have filed hundreds of cases on behalf of students and parents demanding tuition refunds for the kind of education experiences the schools had promised but failed to deliver.

While judges have dismissed many of those cases over a lack of merit, the suing students and parents still saw some victories at appeals courts, including in the cases against American University and New York University.

Last March, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit resurrected a class action lawsuit against New York University. Although a majority of the three-judge panel supported the lower court’s view that the parents did not have standing to sue, they ultimately agreed that adding a current student plaintiff would be sufficient to make the breach of contract and unjust enrichment claims plausible.

Meanwhile, several private and public institutions have settled for millions of dollars, with students suing for COVID-19 tuition reimbursement.

Last year, the University of Delaware (UD) agreed to pay out $6.3 million to settle with students, who argued that the way the university advertised itself to students implied an obligation to offer in-person classes. The students also claimed that forcing them to pay full tuition for online classes at UD, where online classes cost less than traditional courses before the pandemic, constituted unjust enrichment.

Earlier in 2023, Columbia University settled a similar lawsuit with a settlement of $12.5 million. Some other high-profile settlements with students include Johns Hopkins University, for $6.6 million; the University of Pennsylvania, for $4.5 million; and Harvard University, for an undisclosed amount.