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The University of Colorado settled a class action lawsuit over campus shutdowns on Tuesday to the tune of $5 million, The Denver Post reported. The settlement covers all students enrolled at the CU Boulder, Colorado Springs, Denver and Anschutz campuses during the spring 2020 semester.
CU students filed the lawsuit not long after the campus closed in April 2020, alleging the university violated its contract when it charged students for services that they could not access while remote. The university previously refused to refund those payments.
The payout is the third-largest settlement of more than a dozen that have been made in similar shutdown cases; only Columbia University’s, for $12.5 million, and Johns Hopkins’s $6.6 million exceed it.
Colorado’s is the latest in a string of recent campus shutdown settlements. While the vast majority of the cases brought by students alleging breach of contract have been dismissed, others have been approved to go to trial or revived after appeals. For those institutions, the prospect of a long and costly legal battle combined with remaining surplus COVID relief money may make settling an appealing alternative.
But each student won’t be receiving life-changing sums, nor even substantial partial refunds on their tuition.
“It should be equivalent to some pizza or beer money,” Igor Raykin, the lawyer representing the students, told The Denver Post.
