By Asia Allen
Student Correspondent

Some unhappy students at Millsaps College, who were forced to move off campus in March, say the institution’s refund policy is “unfair” because it did not adequately compensate them for unused housing and meal plans.

“The refund was totally undercalculated in my opinion,” said Bethany Dockery, a 20-year-old sophomore neuroscience major, who was astounded when she looked at her school account and saw she was only getting a refund of $1,800 for the semester.

“You’re telling me, out of the $10,000 I paid for the semester I’m only getting back $1,800 total for the more than a month missed of school, food and unacceptable housing. It’s such a rip-off,” she said.

In an interview on April 4, Millsaps Provost and Dean Keith Dunn said, “what I think we have done is to follow our financial aid policy clearly and consistently and fairly to refund what the difference would have been between you living off campus and on campus. I’m just not sure what else we could do, and still be fiscally and ethically responsible.”

The abrupt closure of schools because of the raging coronavirus pandemic has pitted students across the nation against their colleges and universities over nonexistent refunds or what they perceived as inadequate refund policies. The outcry from students, who lost on-campus jobs and money they paid for services they did not receive, prompted state lawmakers nationwide to introduce bills “to ensure students receive refunds for room and board expenses,” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).

The pandemonium has even led to a slew of lawsuits. Bloomberg reported on Friday that “U.S.undergraduates have sued more than 50 schools, demanding partial tuition, room-and-board and fee refunds after they shut down.”  The students argue their college experience has been diminished by online only instruction. Some students at Millsaps share these sentiments.

On March 20, Millsaps President Rob Pearigen informed the 985 students enrolled at the private liberal arts college in Jackson that it was closing its doors because of a surge in the pandemic and that they would have to complete the rest of the spring semester remotely.

Millsaps is one of more than 1,100 colleges and universities in the U.S. that cancelled in-person classes and shifted to online-only instruction in March, the NCSL said in a statement.

Students say the unexpected and sudden closure of the campus led to utter chaos, because they received the news while they were on an extended spring break and were only given three days to move off campus. This put a financial strain on some students, especially international students and those from out-of-state who had to rush back to campus to retrieve their belongings. Some students had to leave some of their personal items behind for staff to pack up.

Khaylah Scott, a 20-year-old sophomore, said she had to make the three-hour trip to Jackson from her home in New Orleans three times. She drove home to New Orleans from Jackson on March 6 for spring break. When the college announced on March 12 that it was temporarily transitioning to online learning, Scott said she drove back to Jackson to retrieve her school books. Then, when Millsaps decided on March 20 to close the campus for the rest of the school year, she had to drive back to Jackson a third time.

“The person that handles a lot of my finances for my school is my mom, and it was a lot for her financially to take three trips within three weeks. As a student from out of state, it was hard to rent a car, and for the last trip, a van, to move out all of my things within that time span,”  Scott said.

‘This whole situation is not good for anyone’

Two weeks after the campus closed, Pearigen announced Millsaps would give students a prorated refund for room and board charges for the two months they were forced to attend classes remotely, but some students and their parents say they were confused by what they saw as a convoluted formula used to make the refund calculation, which included a reduction in students’ merit- based scholarships.

The refund was credited to students’ school account in April. Those with no remaining balances were issued a check.

Millsaps’ financial aid policy requires all students to live on campus, so students who choose to live off campus receive a 35 percent reduction in their merit-based scholarships. This policy, Dunn said, takes into account that the college has “significant fixed costs” whether students live on campus or not.

Millsaps decided to apply this policy to all students who have merit-based scholarships, even though students were forced to move off campus. As a result, students’ refunds were substantially lower than they expected.

Almost 99 percent of Millsaps students depend on merit-based scholarships to help pay for college, said Whitney Emrich, Millsaps’ vice president of Finance and Administration. “All merit-based scholarships are awarded based on a calculation using a cost of attendance including room and board.”

In a sample calculation provided by Emrich, students who paid $5,175 for the semester for housing and $3,130 for their meal plan, would get a prorated refund of 45.5 percent for these charges, which is equivalent to $3,779. However, in this scenario, students who have a merit-based scholarship of $12,000, would get an actual refund of $1,859, about half of what they would have gotten had the college not included the scholarship in the calculation.

After the interview with Provost Dunn, Millsaps posted a revised statement on its website to clarify the refund formula, but the statement did not answer to the satisfaction of several students their main questions: Why is Millsaps penalizing them for living off campus by withdrawing some of the scholarship that was awarded to them? And, why were merit-based scholarships included in the refund calculation?

Dunn said the closure of the college and the transition to remote instruction has resulted in lost revenues and “significant” expenses for the college such as the cost of enhancing its technology. But, he insists Millsaps is not trying to pass on any of its additional costs to students.

Colleges and universities offer two types of scholarships, need-based scholarships and merit-based scholarships, said Kim Clark, assistant director of the Education Writers Association and a veteran business reporter with expertise in financial aid issues.

“Need-based scholarships, as their name implies, are adjusted according to the student's financial needs,” Clark said in a statement. “But true ‘merit’ scholarships (which I prefer to call ‘non-need-based’ scholarships) are only supposed to take into account the student's ‘merit’ and, thus, in theory at least, should not be adjusted if the student's expenses decline. That said, some scholarships are awarded based on a combination of both ‘merit’ and ‘need,’ and this may be one of those.”

Lucie Lapovsky, an economist with expertise in higher education finance and administration, said, ”sometimes if a school says they have a presidential scholarship that's $12,000 that doesn’t distinguish between whether you’re a resident student or a commuter student, then the expectation is that the merit-scholarship is against tuition only. And, most schools tend to just apply the scholarships against tuition.”

Lapovsky pointed out that colleges and universities are also facing financial challenges as a result of the pandemic. “This whole situation is not good for anyone. Schools are spending more money adding technology, professional development, everyone’s stressed. (Millsaps’ refund calculation) was a strategy to reduce how much they had to refund.”

Clark agreed. “This is an unprecedented crisis. As a result, a lot of colleges didn't have contingency plans for this kind of national shutdown.”

Clark added that, “college officials are trying to figure out how to be fair to students but also retain the money they need to ensure they can remain open. Of course, students have expenses and need money as well. So everybody has very strong views on how the available money should get divided up.

“Generally, there just doesn't seem to be enough money to make sure that all students' expenses are fully covered and that every college has enough money to make sure they can stay open. So some parties -- and, in many cases, probably both sides -- are going to suffer.”

‘Fair is difficult to assess’

The total cost of attending Millsaps, which was founded in 1890 by the United Methodist Church, can be as high as $58,514 annually for a full-time residential undergraduate student. Room and board charges alone can range from $7,105 to $8,820 for one semester, so they are a significant portion of the college’s revenue.

Prior to the outbreak, Millsaps was struggling to regain its footing after drastic budget cuts last year that resulted in the layoff of multiple staff and the elimination of several programs including its religion and education programs.

Jacob Deteige, a 21-year-old merit-based scholarship recipient who is graduating with a degree in political science, is sympathetic to the financial challenges that Millsaps is facing due to the pandemic. “Fair is difficult to assess. Does the school retain more money this way? Yes. Does that mean students get less money? Yes. As an institution, Millsaps is trying to make sure that they lose a minimal amount of money so that they can continue to exist.”

Deteige said the larger issue to him is why Millsaps penalizes students who commute in the first place. “What's more unfair to me is the financial aid provision that the college based everything on. Merit scholarships shouldn't be reduced for those living off-campus. Academic achievements don't change depending on where someone lives. An "A" is an "A," and living in Bacot (a dorm on campus) or my apartment doesn't change that.”

Amya Parker, a sophomore general chemistry major, also expressed her frustration with how the refund was calculated. “Forty-five percent given back for room and board was fair. What was unfair was the school reducing the merit scholarship by 35 percent, which lessened what we actually received. I did expect more back, but then the school used the merit scholarship "loophole" to keep some funds, which lessened the refund.”

Not everyone was unhappy about the refund. Some students said they were thankful for the refund because it wiped out their debt, others seem unfazed by the refund calculation.

“For me, the aid given by the school was an absolute blessing,” said Areial Thomas, a 20-year-old sophomore majoring in communications and creative writing. “This school year, I was paying for school on my own. Although I have multiple scholarships, trying to pay the remaining amount on top of being extremely active in school was a hassle. Seeing that I no longer owed money relieved me of so much stress.”

Nineteen-year-old Onyx Magno, a junior accounting major, was one of the few students who was not affected by the merit-based scholarship reduction. “I’m on a different scholarship called the yellow ribbon, so Millsaps didn’t reduce my refund, I assume it’s because they couldn’t take back their financial promise to give a certain amount of money to military kids. The money we are getting back is the correct amount of 45 percent and we are not mad about it at all.”

According to the U.S. Department of Education, Millsaps College was awarded $761,840, as part of the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund that was included in the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.  The law, passed by Congress on March 27, mandates that at least 50 percent of these funds, which is $380,920, must go to students in financial need.

Emrich said in a statement Sunday, “the college applied for and is receiving dollars” from the CARES Act. “We are currently making sure our plans are in keeping with recent guidance from the federal government. Once we have vetted the plan (which we anticipate will be this next week), we will let our students know next steps.”

This story was produced by MCIR's Journalism Lab at Millsaps College, part of a public service project initiated by Report for American and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, nonprofit news organizations dedicated to community journalism and empowering Mississippians in their communities through the use of investigative journalism. MCIR Investigative Reporter and Report for America corps member Shirley L. Smith is the lab instructor.

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