By: The SIPA Tuition Organizing Committee

EDITORS NOTE: Editor's Note: Students and affiliates who would like to add their support for this letter, may do so by signing the petition here (linked).

May 3, 2020
Dean Merit Janow
International Affairs Building
Room 1414
420 West 118th Street
New York, NY 10027

Dean Janow,

We are writing to you as a united collective because we believe you have the ability to help your students in a tangible, realistic, and meaningful way. While the devastation of the global COVID-19 pandemic is universal, students are in a particularly vulnerable position in the economy. We took a significant risk to invest in the promise that a SIPA education will pay off. We invested our time, talents, and resources at the number one international global policy school. Today, we ask that you, too, take bold and decisive action to aid your student body with your full strength.

While we appreciate the efforts to bolster the SIPA Emergency Fund and the commitment to refund minor fees, ($130 refund from SIPA and the $119 from Columbia University), this only represents 0.77% of total SIPA tuition and fees for the semester. SIPA students are entitled to much more given the University’s failure to deliver services that students paid for. It is not the University that bears the cost of degraded quality of learning but the students. We believe this can only be corrected through a fair partial refund policy of $7,292.84.

We, the undersigned, ask for the following:

1. An acknowledgement of receipt of this letter and a direct, substantial response by Dean Janow directly to SIPA students to address our concerns.

While we believe SIPASA is doing a great job working with the SIPA Administration in closed meetings, we believe the SIPA Administration must address its full student body directly. Many students have contacted Dean Janow regarding their concerns but have not received a response or even an acknowledgement of receipt. This is no longer acceptable. Please make arrangements for an all-student SIPA Town Hall prior to May 15 with Dean Janow and other administrators present that is open to student questions.

2. A detailed plan of action for the use of the U.S. CARES Act stimulus money.

The University received a $12.8M stimulus package. The University must make public a specific breakdown of how these funds will be spent. Specifically, the University must detail how financial aid will be disbursed to SIPA students, the criteria for aid levels to students, and a timeline for disbursement. It is Dean Janow’s role to advocate on our behalf.

3. A full refund of tuition to students for instructional services not rendered on the dates of March 9-10 and March 23-25 when classes were canceled by the University and not rescheduled.

It is our understanding that SIPA faculty were prohibited from rescheduling canceled class sessions to a later date and were asked to condense their remaining lessons, in some cases resulting in 12 weeks of instruction instead of the 14 that SIPA students have paid for. This refund is valued at approximately $3,284 of instructional services guaranteed to us by the University and SIPA that we will never receive.1

4. A partial refund of tuition and fees for degraded instructional and institutional services for the remainder of class sessions held remotely.

Despite the wholehearted efforts of our wonderful faculty who are taking measures above and beyond what is expected of them to ensure our learning, there is nevertheless a deficiency in remote learning that cannot be ignored. Benchmarked against other online masters programming offered by the University, we estimate the difference between in-person and online instruction to be $417.50 less per week of instruction. As such, we estimate that students are owed approximately $3,340 in tuition and $668 in fees.1

Additionally, we request detailed budgets for how SIPA student tuition is being spent on instruction and programming, including but not limited to SIPA Capstones and related travel, travel grants, case competitions, and other expenditures for SIPA resources that we paid for through tuition but cannot benefit from during remote learning.

5. A repeal of the 4% tuition and fee rates for the Fall 2020 semester to reflect the current economic conditions and the value of remote instruction and a plan for tuition refunds should classes not resume to normal by the start of the Fall 2020 semester.

We find it reprehensible that the University would approve a 4% tuition increase for the coming academic year given the present circumstance, the depreciated value of a SIPA degree in the current economy, and the lack of clarity about the format of the Fall 2020 semester. We demand that, at minimum, the University should maintain flat tuition rates for the 2020-2021 academic year and also prepare a contingency plan to partially refund students should classes resume online in Fall 2020.

This should be of mutual interest to admitted and continuing students as well as to SIPA, which will be severely challenged to maintain robust enrollment numbers in the next academic year. If you want SIPA students to return, you must lower the already bloated tuition rates.

6. Use available resources from the Columbia University Endowment to fund the student financial aid response.

The Endowment stands at $10.9 billion and experienced a 3.8% return on investment in 2019. Additionally, $3.5 billion of the Endowment is without donor restrictions and the University possesses another $3.8 billion of unrestricted assets. While it is to be expected that the Endowment will underperform this year due to the general economic conditions, a partial refund of this amount should be well within the margin of the fund benchmarks. Assuming that Columbia University instituted a blanket policy of issuing a partial refund of $10,000 to every enrolled student, the total refund would represent ~3% of the Columbia Endowment.

A spending policy of this magnitude is warranted and it is allowable under the Endowment’s rules and is appropriate given the unprecedented situation that the University faces. It is our belief that there is no more worthy time to spend the Endowment on emergency tuition refunds. We ask, why have an Endowment at all if it is not there to serve students in our greatest time of need?

We believe that universities – places of model behavior, innovation, and moral authority – have a responsibility to offer ethically and generously what they owe to their students. Again, we ask you to consider the policy options that are outlined above and to engage critically and constructively with students and to advocate on our behalf in order to appropriately serve students and fulfill the institutional mission of Columbia University.

Should you fail to satisfy the demands of this petition, the undersigned SIPA students refuse to donate to future fundraising campaigns as alumni. Additionally, we may be forced to consider other forms of resolution including, but not limited to, legal action against the University.

Thank you for your attention.

Signed: The SIPA Tuition Organizing Committee and co-signers (sign this petition)

Open Letter on Reimbursement to Dean Janow