This claim concentrates on students who were at university during 2020-2022, but it also focuses on those who have had their university experience hindered through strike action from 2018. These students are arguing for compensation as they did not receive the quality of education that they deserved or were paying for.
Online learning, as well as lectures and seminars being completely cut because of strike action, has ensured a student body that feels that their £9,250 tuition fee for home students, and a considerable amount more for international students, is not acceptable considering how much learning they have lost out on. This argument has been acknowledged by Ryan Dunleavy, a Partner at one of the legal teams representing these students, who argued that “people choose a university based upon its facilities and its tuition,” and an online course is “not what they paid for.”
So far there have been 18 universities that could face action against them, including Newcastle University. However, Universities UK, which is representative of universities across the country; their president, Steven West, has argued against these claims, believing that “universities were delivering learning and education and were providing support, albeit in a different formant. So the costs for the university were still there.” He claims that universities did enough to claim the tuition fees from students.
