The average price for Super Bowl tickets last year was $5,511. This year, with “social distancing” enforced and fewer tickets available, the average price was $14,110.
That was just the average. A fan who wanted to have a really good seat or had to buy a ticket second- or third-hand paid considerably more.
How would such a fan feel if, after shelling out all that cash, he arrived at the stadium and discovered that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs would not be playing on the field in front of him, but that the championship game, played at a remote location, would be televised on the jumbotron?
He’d feel cheated, of course, and entitled to a full or at least substantial refund.
Anna Seballos did not pay $14,110 for a Super Bowl ticket this year, but she did pay $24,165 in tuition to attend Rice University last spring, with the understanding that she would have access to in-person instruction in classrooms populated by other students, and physical access to other on-campus resources such as the library, athletic facilities, etc.
Thanks to the university’s decision to cancel in-person classes, Seballos did not get that for which she paid. Under the circumstances, she thought she was entitled to, and asked for, a refund of her tuition, which Rice denied.
Seballos is now suing the university in the U.S. District Court for Southern Texas for breach of contract and seeking compensatory damages for herself and other students.
“This is a class action lawsuit on behalf of all persons who paid tuition … to attend Rice for in-person, hands-on educational services … for the semesters or terms affected by (COVID-19) and had their course work moved to online-only learning,” her suit states. “Rice has not refunded any amount of the tuition or any of the Mandatory Fees, even though it canceled in-person classes.”
Seballos may not have gotten the on-campus instruction she expected, but she’s had a learning experience, and now she’s educating Rice.