Colleges to refund millions
UW System faces $78 million in returned room and board fees
The University of Wisconsin System is estimating its campuses will pay back nearly $80 million to students who left campuses as the coronavirus took hold in the state.
System leaders announced last week they would ensure students received prorated refunds for the spring 2020 semester’s housing and food payments.
Every campus in the school system has moved courses online or to a remote format through the end of the semester, with some going into the summer semester. Many have made the decision to delay or cancel commencement ceremonies as well.
Schools are still calculating the exact costs of the payback, but the UW System estimate as of Thursday was about $78 million.
At UW-Milwaukee, the initial estimate for refunds is $7.5 million, according to spokeswoman Michelle Johnson.
UW-Green Bay has an early estimate at $2.1 million, according to Gail Sims-Aubert, the campus’ director of residence life.
UW-Parkside is looking at about $2 million, spokesman John Milke said.
UW-Stevens Point is looking at $3.8 million, spokeswoman Nick Schultz said.
In an interview Thursday, UW-Oshkosh Chancellor Andrew Leavitt said his campus was looking at a $5 million refund. He said the refunds are what the universities want and need to do, but the hit is “pretty devastating.”
“That’s going to be a big lift for us,” Leavitt said. “We have a budget of a little less than $100 million, so its about a 5% payback for the entire budget if you were to look at it that way,” he said. “It’s also essentially depleting all of our reserves for housing and food contracts. This is why we have reserves, is to do things like this.”
Refunds used to pay off any balance
In the March 19 announcement confirming the refunds, System President Ray Cross said the move was simply “the right thing to do” given the upheaval the pandemic has created for students.
System spokesman Mark Pitsch told the Journal Sentinel at the time that individual campuses would determine how to manage and disburse the refunds.
UW-Madison’s director of university housing said last week that the refunds would be in the form of a credit to students’ campus accounts, meaning the funds would first be used to pay off any outstanding balance, with the rest returned to students in a check or bank transfer. Other schools likely will follow that model as well.
Private schools also are working out refunds or credits.
Marquette University said it would offer refunds with the option for students and families to donate some or all of that money to help the university continue to feed, house and otherwise support students who cannot leave.
The refund estimates come a day after the U.S. Senate passed a $2 trillion stimulus package that allots about $14 billion in emergency relief to colleges and universities across the country.
That allotment falls well short of what national higher education leaders and advocates were asking for to keep institutions afloat amid the biggest financial hit to colleges since the Great Recession of the late 2000s. Many campus leaders in Wisconsin were already worrying about revenue constraints from declining enrollment and — at public institutions — historic declines in state funding.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, nearly a dozen higher education associations came together to make the case that it would take $50 billion to keep colleges and universities afloat.
In a statement Wednesday, Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, said the Senate’s package acknowledges the financial crisis colleges are in, but “overall, the assistance included in the measure for students and institutions is far below what is required to respond to the financial disaster confronting them.”
“Campuses are losing staggering sums after closing for safety reasons and refunding tuition, room and board, and other auxiliary revenues,” Mitchell said. “If these needs are not met, students are going to suffer financially and may drop out.”