On March 6, 2020, faced with the ongoing spread of the Coronavirus in Los Angeles and beyond, University of Southern California announced their decision to move all classes to Zoom from March 11 to March 13, which has now been extended to April 14. The fact is all the classes of this semester will end on May 1 and nearly 1/3 of the classes will be transferred online. While we recognize and sympathize with the difficult position that the Coronavirus has put University of Southern California in, this transition to online classes represents a notable reduction in educational and instructional quality, which we fear will negatively affect our educational and professional outcomes moving forward. Further, we fear that the quality of education we will be receiving will not be commensurate with costly tuition payments made in January of this year.

In addition to a reduction in educational quality, other unintended consequences of the Coronavirus, including cancelled talks on campus, networking events, and reduced face-to-face time with professors and colleagues, threaten to negatively affect our short and long-term professional outcomes. This is a particularly worrying prospect for those of us graduating in 2020, as we will likely find ourselves graduating into a recession.

With this in mind, we call upon the University to address the reduction of educational quality that online classes represent, as well as the negative professional impacts of reduced networking opportunities and cancelled campus events, by providing students with a partial tuition reimbursement. Thank you for your reading and sharing.