University of Chicago students begin tuition strike, calling for school to halve cost during pandemic

University of Chicago students began a tuition strike today, calling on the school to halve tuition and waive fees during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“They say they have a robust financial aid system and can’t reduce their tuition without trade-offs. Those are things that our campaign disagrees with wholeheartedly,” said Julia Attie, an organizer with UChicago for Fair Tuition, the group behind the campaign.

Attie said that a 50% tuition reduction for all students would cost about $85 million, a fraction of the school’s $8.5 billion endowment. “We’re in the top one percent of all endowments nationally,” she said. “What’s the purpose of having this huge endowment if you’re not going to use it in times of crisis?” 

About 200 people were withholding tuition as of April 29, the spring quarter payment deadline, though more students may join in the coming days, according to Attie. Participants are split about evenly between undergraduates and graduate students from master’s programs and professional schools. 

In a petition with more than 1,800 signatures, striking students and supporters presented the administration with a list of demands, including more transparency around the school’s budget, the reinstatement of part-time status for students, and a tuition freeze going forward. 

“As the coronavirus pandemic continues, it will create an increasingly disparate impact on low-income students, students with disabilities, students of color, queer students, students with children, and more,” it reads. “We have come together as a community to address the new realities that graduate and undergraduate students face during this crisis.”

In a statement to the Herald, the school’s administration said that “tuition is an essential source of funding for the University’s ongoing operations, including support for financial aid as well as faculty and staff salaries. Reducing tuition for students regardless of their financial means would require substantial cutbacks in operations.”

That phrasing echoed an April 21 email to students from  Provost Ka Yee C. Lee, who wrote that the university would not institute a universal tuition reduction for spring quarter because it would “hinder the University’s ability to provide all of its current educational offerings and to fulfill its core research and education mission.” Lee also wrote that the school’s endowment could not be used because much of it was “legally restricted,” which means that it must be used for a purpose designated by donors.

In an April 28 op-ed published in the Chicago Maroon, UChicago for Fair Tuition organizers argued that this is a smokescreen, pointing to financial statements that show about $2 billion of the endowment has no restriction on it, and that even legally restricted funds can be used for other purposes if the university gets permission from donors. 

Attie said that this is also a larger issue stretching beyond the pandemic, pointing to a New York Times opinion piece from 2015, in which law professor Victor Fleischer argued that universities should stop “hoarding money” through endowments. 

Despite its large endowment, the U. of C.’s finances have been in a delicate position for the past few years, partly because funding new capital projects has left it with more debt. Though the agency Moody’s affirmed the school’s existing credit rating earlier this year, it warned that “monthly liquidity, already relatively modest for its rating category, provides thinning coverage for the university’s rising expense base.” 

In early April, President Robert J. Zimmer outlined the financial implications of the COVID-19 crisis in a campus-wide email. He wrote that the university would help students in need of more financial aid, and implement funding freezes and cuts, slowing new academic hiring and keeping salaries at their current levels for the next year. 

Another complaint from striking students has been the availability of financial aid for students, both before and during the pandemic. Under the U. of C.’s “No Barriers” program, families making under $125,000 receive free tuition. In response to the pandemic, students are able to request an extension on payments for spring quarter, and to apply for an adjustment to their current financial aid. 

But organizers say that eligibility for free tuition only applies to domestic undergraduates, excluding international and master’s students. They have shared testimony from anonymous students online. 

“One of the reasons I came to UChicago was because of their promise that they would meet all financial need and that I’d be able to graduate debt-free,” wrote one student. “With 2 kids in college and another at home, though, the aid UChicago gave my parents wasn’t enough - even after working 15 hours/week through federal work-study and receiving outside scholarships, I had to take on loans to pay for UChicago.”

If the administration does not negotiate with students, Attie said, UChicago for Fair Tuition is considering filing a class-action lawsuit against the school for breach of contract. She worries, though, that this would shift the focus of their argument away from low-income students, or students whose families have been affected by the pandemic, and toward issues with remote learning. 

“It’s not about our unwillingness to sue the university — we just want this to be less about the quality of education argument and more about marginalized students,” she said. “We’re trying to push the administration to the negotiating table first.”