As the Covid-19 virus continues to spread colleges, including UWW, have told students to pack up and go home for an extended spring break before a mandatory few weeks of online classes. This is a totally understandable and reasonable handling the situation however one has to ask, What about the money that students have already paid to live and eat on campus for the semester?

Obviously UWW as an institution is hurting financially but this is no excuse to not either partially refund the several week’s worth of meals and living expenses. Many students could use that money for other expenses in their lives. For the average college student that attends UWW, the hundreds of dollars could help them a great deal to not only pay for college but for other non-acedemic things. The only right decision for the school is to reimburse student’s money. If this is not financially feasible for the college to do there is another option, namely, waiving part of students’ housing and meal plans for the coming Fall 2020 semester. This would put a little less immediate financial pressure on the college as a whole.

In short, the self-imposed restrictions for on-campus activity is an excellent use of judgment by the university. However, they must make sure that they must either reimburse students for wasted meal plans and housing contracts or waive part of these contracts for the Fall 2020 semester. Anything else is nothing short of highway robbery.

Gilbert Mizialko Hnilo

UW-Whitewater Student