Student takes BC university to court to try to reclaim tuition fees
Shine Sharma’s hopes of studying at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) were swiftly dashed when her student visa application was rejected. The situation worsened because she had already paid the $14,500 tuition fees.
KPU refunded Sharma $8,940 of the tuition fees but did not reimburse the rest of the money. The university told the BC Civil Resolution Tribunal that she had missed the deadline for the full refund.
This did not sit well with Sharma, so she decided to sue them for the maximum small claims monetary limit: $5,000.
According to the decision, Sharma attended a registration seminar in November 2021 that provided details on registering for classes and the dates students must drop classes to be able to claim a refund.
However, when Sharma submitted her tuition refund request in January 2022, she had not dropped her classes. KPU told the court this meant that she remained registered at the university and that others could not fill her spot in those classes.
Sharma said she was unaware of the requirement to drop her classes until March 2022 but argued that no deadlines for dropping courses were mentioned when she sent her refund request.
She also told the court that she could not access the university portal to drop her classes as her password did not work and that she had even followed up with the university using her personal email account.
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KPU disputed her claim, saying that not only did their webpage state the dates for withdrawals and refunds, but she never contacted them about her access difficulties and could have reset her password using her personal email account.
Unfortunately for the court, neither Sharma nor KPU provided documentary evidence to support their account of the events.
According to the documents, the court decided that with the information provided, Sharma failed to prove that the university did not inform her about the tuition refund deadlines and that she failed to prove she could not access the university portal.
Her claim was dismissed, and she was ordered to reimburse the university $50 in court fees.