UCL to Pay £21.25 Million to Students in Covid Settlement

Image Credit: David Iliff via Wikimedia Commons

Though the days of COVID-19 virus feel like a distant memory, many students whose studies were interrupted by the pandemic are still fighting to receive what they believe they are owed. In 2022, around 20,000 students across the UK called for legal action against UK universities, seeking compensation having paid full fees despite an online university experience. They are represented by the Student Group Claim campaign, a group now representing over 200,000 students from 36 UK universities, applying pressure on UK universities to compensate their lockdown students. 

Now, almost four years later, UCL is the first UK university to agree to a large-scale COVID settlement of £21.25 million, which is to be allocated to the 6,500 students affected by the Covid pandemic in their studies, most of which had already joined the Student Group Claim. UCL students received news of this settlement via email, as well as the message that the settlement agreed was “strictly confidential” and that they were not to communicate with anyone or publish the details of their settlement amount. Both UCL and the lawyers involved in the settlement have declined to comment on the settlement sum.

The settlement represents both financial compensation and a symbolic resolution of the many lingering issues left over from the Covid pandemic, heightening the pressure on other UK universities to follow in UCL’s steps.