Art Students at Yale and Other Universities are Demanding Tuition Refunds After Their Classes Were Moved Online

As schools across the country
close their campuses for the semester and transition to online
courses, many graduate art students are left wondering how
they will continue their studies without the studio space, one-on-one critiques,
exhibition opportunities, and other hands-on features that are a
natural part of a contemporary art education. At some institutions,
the question has turned to tuition.

More than 100 MFA students at
the Yale School of Art are requesting that the university refund
part of their semester tuition after the institution closed its
studios and facilities yesterday, according to Artforum.  

“We are deeply troubled by the
far-reaching repercussions of this event, which has tangible and
unfathomable implications for our physical and mental health,
financial security, professional careers, housing, and immigration
status,” the Yale students wrote in a letter to school president
Peter Salovey and Yale School of Art dean Marta Kuzma. “In light of
these circumstances, we believe that financial reimbursement must
play a part in the university’s forthcoming actions.”

A representative from Yale did
not respond to a request for comment.

Yale’s art students aren’t the
first to request tuition reimbursement in the face of studio and
facility closures.

Last week, students at New York
University’s Tisch School Of The Arts launched an online petition
calling on the school’s dean, Allyson Green, to reverse her
decision after she announced on March 18 that this semester’s
tuition would not be refunded to any degree.

“By placing profits above the
concerns, needs, and quality of education being received by NYU
students,” the petition reads, “the dean ignores the fact that us
art students will be paying full price for an education that lacks
the facilities, equipment, technology, services, and hands-on
experience we are explicitly paying for.”

The letter, which now counts
more than 1,800 signatories, links to pages of testimonies from
Tisch’s various departments in which students discuss the impact
the closures have had on their education. Similar petitions have
been created by students at the School of Visual
Arts in New York and
the Maryland Institute College
of Art in
Baltimore. 

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Art
Institute will likely shutter for good this semester after failing
to find a larger educational institution with which to
partner. 

The school, which is no longer
able to sustain itself financially, announced
today that it
anticipates a “precipitous
decline in enrollment” and is “now considering the suspension of our regular courses
and degree programs starting immediately after graduation in May of
this year.”

The institute’s faculty and
staff will be laid off at the end of the current semester, while
the future for current students remains up in the air.

“At this time, it is unclear
when instruction will resume, and in what form, pending our efforts
to secure additional funding and potentially resume our talks with
educational partners,” the school’s president, Gordon Knox, and
board chair, Pam Rorke Levy, said in a statement.

The post Art Students at Yale and Other Universities are
Demanding Tuition Refunds After Their Classes Were Moved Online
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