Louisiana state colleges announced that they were
reimbursing college students this week, the Associated Press reported.
Back in mid-March, virtually every college in the country
terminated its in-person operations, exceptions for students with special
accommodations, such as foreign nationals here on visas, notwithstanding. The
updated coronavirus threat level seemed to knock off a line of dominos. One
minute, all the colleges were chugging along. The next, they were closing, one after
the next.
The unprecedented closures triggered a mass exodus of
undergraduates, who suddenly found themselves without a roof over their heads. For
those students who made payments in advance for accommodations they never
received, Louisiana public colleges are paying them back.
The Louisiana Board of Regents, the governing body of the
state university system, dealt with the particulars in a meeting last week.
Colleges involved in the announcement included LSU, The University of Louisiana
at Lafayette, and historically black college or university (HBCU) Southern
University in Baton Rouge.
The millions in refunds primarily consisted of, but were not
limited to, housing costs. Some of the money also went to cover the cost of
aborted meal plans.
