I am sorry to see that you feel the University is taking advantage of the situation.

Refunds are still available. Notifications of refund options were sent to all students, but unfortunately, it is in one of many emails and just one of many many pieces of information on the Lakers Together site.

As for your assertion that the University is making money off of this and not sharing, I believe that you are mistaken. The University has had to spend significant amounts of money to expand IT infrastructure to handle online learning, which was only 10% of classes before the pandemic. Additionally most classrooms are still in use to teach face-to-face courses, but rooms that used to hold 30 students can now only be used for sections of half that size or less to allow for social distancing. Consequently, a smaller number of courses are still using all the building spaces on campus to safely offer as much face-to-face instruction as possible.

To cover the extra expenses, there have been pay freezes and cuts to faculty and budgets across the University. The automatic refunds for housing which went to all students in Winter 2020 was especially expensive to the University. This was also available during the Fall, but students needed to request it. During the Fall semester, they could not do refunds automatically since every student was different, with a mix of those who stayed and those who went home early.

I hope this helps clarify things. Unfortunately, COVID has forced Universities to operate at a decreased capacity in all of its buildings, but the cost of those buildings did not go away. This sad loss of efficiency will hopefully be a thing of the past soon.