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After Campus Evictions, Some Schools Are Charging Students to Get Their Belongings Back

After Campus Evictions, Some Schools Are Charging Students to Get Their Belongings Back

“University of Virginia students will have to pay $65-100”

This is outrageous. Parents and students would be justified in being angry over this.

The College Fix reports:

After sudden coronavirus evictions, universities demand students pay to get their stuff back

If you were tempted to feel sympathy for the plight of higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic, this will help you resist temptation.

Some universities are not only packing up students’ belongings without telling them first, but demanding that students pay them to get their own stuff back following short-notice evictions that were portrayed as temporary, Inside Higher Ed reports.

University of Virginia students will have to pay $65-100 if they want to retrieve their own belongings from a storage site before the state’s June 10 stay-at-home order expires. Those who can’t pick them up physically because of other government restrictions on their movement will also be charged shipping:

Several students, including [recent Student Council president Ellie] Brasacchio, who does not live in one of the affected residence halls, attempted to move out weeks ago, but the office of housing and residential life had changed locks and access codes to the buildings, she said.

George Washington University led students to think they were coming back to campus in early April, leading many to leave belongings behind, student Amelia Larkin said. Then the private university pulled the rug out from under them, saying online instruction would continue the rest of the academic year and they shouldn’t come back:

George Washington later told students in an email that private moving companies would pack up and store their belongings. “Non-essential” items will be stored in a facility until the fall semester, and if students want to retrieve belongings before then, they “may have options to pay” to have them shipped to them, the university said in a message to students on April 6. …

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Comments

The Friendly Grizzly | April 9, 2020 at 8:04 am

Virginia has become an interesting place.

WVU OTOH has refunded dorm fees and meal plans for the rest of the term. We’re still waiting to go back and get our student’s things, but we don’t expect to be charged for the privilege.

A bad note – one of the maintenance workers was recorded rifling through student’s things in the same dorm we use.

    The Friendly Grizzly in reply to jeffweimer. | April 9, 2020 at 9:55 am

    A bad note – one of the maintenance workers was recorded rifling through student’s things in the same dorm we use.

    And, unless you have receipts for what is stolen, you have no way to prove the theft. Is it that convenient?

Non-essential items will be stored

That suggests that not all of a student’s possessions are going to be stored, some of them will be thrown out. I wonder what algorithm is being used to make that choice.

surfcitylawyer | April 9, 2020 at 12:44 pm

I would expect the state’s landlord-tenant laws would apply. California’s laws require notice and the ability to pick up before stuff is stored, sold, or thrown out.

Connivin Caniff | April 9, 2020 at 4:07 pm

File a class action, with punitive damagess.

Hopefully there aren’t any international students involved, the shipping costs would be crazy, add in all the documentation for customs and the possibility of paying duty on your own personal belongings
On another front, they can host a Storage Wars type event where people come and bid on the left over boxes, all money to the University of course.