Full-time students at Chicago’s Columbia College spend $14,000 (Rs 10.3 lakh) a year for professional, hands-on training in dance, film and music that the school normally offers in studios and classrooms scattered across the city’s South Loop and Near South Side.

When the pandemic led the school to move some coursework online this summer without reducing tuition, many students, including Isaiah Moore, cried foul.

A television and cultural studies major, Moore now leads a group of students holding campus demonstrations, circulating a petition and meeting with school officials in the hopes of a tuition cut and more transparency in the college’s finances. “We want our tuition to reflect the way our education is being experienced now,” said the 21-year-old from New Jersey.

Moore is one of a growing number of US college students pushing for their schools to cut tuition and fees because of reduced classroom time and less access to campus resources. With two-thirds of American colleges moving at least some of their fall classes online, students have become more vocal in their objections, saying they are not getting the education they purchased.

Many colleges and varsities, including Columbia College, have refused to reduce tuition, saying salary and maintenance costs have held steady.

“For all three instructional methods, the college will be delivering all expected learning outcomes for courses and credit towards graduation,” Columbia College, which is not affiliated with New York’s Columbia University, said. It said it was providing a “well-rounded and rigorous fall semester”.

Some institutions have lowered tuition and fees, including Georgetown, Princeton and Northwestern University where fall tuition was slashed by 10 per cent.

Even so, Northwestern’s cut has failed to satisfy 175 students who have signed a letter threatening a tuition strike beginning October 1. In the letter, to be sent to the school’s president, the students demand officials reverse a 3.5 per tuition hike implemented in June before the 10 per cent cut was made, and further reduce tuition by at least 30 per cent.

“Withholding tuition en masse is quite a large move, but we believe it is warranted given the level of crisis,” said one of the organisers of the protest, Alex Harrison, a 19-year-old sophomore.

The protesting students at the private university of 21,000 students in Evanston, Illinois, north of Chicago, are also demanding officials address issues involving housing contracts, financial aid, work-study and support staff while calling on them to use some of the school’s $10.8-billion endowment to help students through the pandemic.

Other college students have taken to online petitions to voice their frustration. Change.org says 1,500 petitions calling for college tuition reductions during the pandemic have been created on its site. The petitions have received close to one million signatures since March, the platform said.