Does college students have right to ask refund for bad classes?

Question

Does college students have right to ask refund for bad classes? I am a college student, but some classes are just terrible. Professors are not prepared, speak too quiet and cannot hear at all, not organized at all so do not know what to do in the class, or the purpose of class is not clear at all. I do not learn anything from some classes, and I still have to pay thousands of dollars for them. I feel like the college stealing my money for nothing. Can students ask refunds for these terrible classes? We are students, and paying customer at the same time. Is strict riability law or something apply for this situation?

Answer 1

No.
You can be an advocate for change by organizing students to complain, and you can approach a professor with your issues, but you cannot get a refund for a class. You can transfer out of a class as the above poster stated. If you're that unhappy with so many of your classes, look to transfer to another school. Have you tried moving to the front of the class? Are you asking your professors what you can do to get what you're supposed to be getting out of the class?

No offense, but your grammar is just plain terrible. Are you sure it's the professors you can't understand, and not the other way around (unless your school is not an English-language school, in which case, this does not apply)?

Answer 2

Unless the school has a satisfaction guaranteed clause, once you've registered there is nothing you can do. Most schools have a date until which you can drop a course and get at least a partial refund.

You do not have to pay for the courses. You can choose to not attend college.

Most schools have a course evaluation at the end of the term, and do to some extent use those evaluations for future courses.

Ask around before you take a course, perhaps talk with the professor.

At the university level, it is not up to the professor to teach the students; instead the students are given the opportunity to learn from the professor. The locus of responsibility is shifted from instructor to student.

In all honesty, I am having difficulties believing that the problem lies with the proffessors in this case. Read what you wrote! Editing to add, I just skimmed your older questions, and I see that English isn't your first language. If any part of your difficulty with courses is not following in English, you need to speak with the professor or your TAs.

Answer 3

You can certainly drop bad classes, but you can't ask for a refund unless something went seriously wrong. For one thing, you may find that the classes you think are terrible are someone else's favorites. Some students hate classes because they are hard, others because they are too easy. Some hate Powerpoint and super-organized classes, while others think that is what constitutes a good class. Some students object to professors with the slightest foreign accent.

It is hard to untangle what is the professor's fault and what is the student's. Often, when a student tells me that a class was terrible and they didn't learn, it turns out that they never showed up for class or failed to study.

If the professor never showed up for class, or lied on a resume and turned to be completely unqualified to teach, you might have a good case for a refund, but otherwise, you cannot ask for your money back.

With regard to your being a customer, there is a problem: Students are customers of the university only in that the university needs to attract them. Once they are there, the student goes from being a customer, to being a product. It is the responsibility of a university to turn the student into an effective graduate, not to please the student at any cost. If we did that, we would end up getting sued by all of our students for failing to prepare them for the real world after they graduate!

Answer 4

I've heard of situations where the class got together to talk to admin about the class. I have only heard of it happening once where the school offered to allow the students to retake the same class with a different prof. You'd have to show proof that the class is bad and that its not just the students fault, but that the prof sucks. I've had classes before where the prof is just horrible, but the best you can do is fill out a bad report on the prof at the end of the year, if your school does teacher evaluations, if not probably just talk to the department about it.
Schools are obviously wary of situations like this because they don't want students to assume that they can complain to get their money back, also they don't want students doing this as a way of getting revenge for a bad mark.

Answer 5

YOU are a consumer and it is up to you to demand effective teaching while you are in the class. Don't whine about it after it is over. The time to speak up is when it first becomes apparent that you aren't going to get much out of the class. Talk to the professor and then go over his/her head to the academic dean if it doesn't improve.

Answer 6

You can usually drop out the first week without any penalty but after that, you can't get a refund.