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Pratt Institute Students Sue School for Tuition Refund, Claiming "Subpar" Online Classes

Design education litigation

By Rain Noe - May 5, 2020

in design.edu

According to Pratt Institute's website, Industrial Design students have been assigned to make those "Isolation Chairs" from last month…

"Isolation Chairs" made by students in Industrial Design Studio II (via @PrattInstitute/Instagram)

…but apparently not everyone's thrilled with the curriculum. The Daily News reports that a group of undergraduate Pratt Institute students have brought a lawsuit against the school, demanding a tuition refund in the face of inadequate online instruction.

"The online learning options being offered to Pratt students are subpar in practically every aspect, from the lack of facilities, materials and access to faculty," a lawyer for the students wrote in the suit. "Students have been deprived of the opportunity for collaborative learning and in-person dialogue, feedback and critique."

…The Pratt Institute lawsuit argued that the university's design focus makes remote, online learning even less feasible for students.

I can't imagine how one would go about teaching Industrial Design from afar. If you're an ID student, whether at Pratt or elsewhere, please drop us a line in the comments--I'm intensely curious to hear how your online classes are going.

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Jennifer Tate

4 years ago

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I think this article and the lawsuit does a real disservice to the complexity of the problem everyone going through the pandemic is experiencing right now. I'm not longer a student - and apparently those are the only voices you're interested in hearing from - but as a faculty member at Pratt, I can tell you I've put in easily 3-4 times the amount of work a normal semester requires to try give the same value of education to my students. I can also tell you that I've spent a lot of my time and energy just getting my students to show up to class, nevermind actually doing the work. It's a shame outliers and sensational lawsuits are getting even this meager amount of time and attention. How about an article the shows the lengths to which all parties involved - students, admin, faculty, support staff - are going through in order to try and do the best they can about the situation instead of sowing more outrage and discord than already exists? Maybe then we can inspire more empathy and understanding about the situation instead of more yelling into the void.

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Kaja Kropidłowska

4 years ago

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I'm an industrial design student at UP Krakow, Poland. Our teachers have literally gone a huge way to make our studies possible during quarantine. We realised now how important is face to face contact while creating together. Most of our projects now we prefer to do separately since we all have a different tempo. Also, we don't finish any project with the actual made model, but after all that can be done (research, sketches, picking materials, colouring, market analysis and other parts that can be done remotely) we usually finish with the summing up presentation. We send all the work steps to our teachers and they send back feedback and next tasks. This time though allows us to take more personal approach to understanding design process and discovering ourselves as artists. It's been very challenging and we all miss hanging out together in class.

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Phoebe Degroot

4 years ago

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Educators everywhere are trying their damnedest to adapt to an entirely new mode of teaching- nobody knew this was coming so it's really trial by fire. Students absolutely should get some tuition break but it should not provoke outrage that there is a learning curve.

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