Days after the first reported cases of COVID-19 in Michigan spurred a statewide state of emergency in March 2020, MSU announced it would move its classes online and offered a $1,120 credit to encourage students to move out of on-campus housing. 

Then-students James Allen, Matthew Olin and Megan Placko — and several of their parents — filed a lawsuit against the university the next month, arguing that students paid for an in-person education and deserved partial reimbursement for tuition, room and board, and other fees.

In court filings, the university countered that the cost of tuition was based on the number of credit hours a student takes, not the format of the class. It also argued that a provision in its residential housing contract allowed for the agreement to be terminated "in case of an emergency that would make continued operation of resident housing impossible."

The court agreed, saying that even if informational materials distributed by the university implied that its educational offerings were in-person, the carve outs in its contracts gave MSU the authority to change how it delivered its services.

"Despite the pandemic, MSU successfully maintained the core of its educational mission — providing instruction and various services for students — throughout the pandemic," the court wrote in its decision. "Furthermore, there was never an agreement stipulating that education and services had to be delivered in a specific format. Therefore, it is wholly fair and just for MSU to retain the tuition and fees it collected."

An MSU spokesperson declined to comment. Law firm Milberg Phillips Grossman LLP., who represented the students in the suit, did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.