Education

University Threatens To Boot Students Off Campus Wi-Fi And Fine Them Until They Get Vaccinated

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Quinnipiac University in Connecticut will issue fines and cut campus internet access from students who do not get vaccinated, the school’s newspaper said.

The Chief Experience Officer of Quinnipiac University, Tom Ellett, told approximately 600 students on Monday of penalties, including fines and “loss of campus network and Wi-Fi access,” were they not to upload proof of vaccination to an online university health portal, Ellett told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Noncompliance with the university’s vaccination requirement, Ellett told students, will result in fines of $100 for two weeks. Student fines will increase by $25 every two weeks with a maximum weekly fine of $200, he explained.

Students face up to $2,275 of fines for failure to comply with the new vaccine mandate, but the university will stop fining students if they can prove they received a second vaccine shot before Sept. 14, according to the Quinnipiac Chronicle.

The school’s mask mandate, announced earlier in August, requires indoor face coverings on campus, including in classrooms, regardless of vaccination status, according to the Chronicle.

The financial incentives to take a vaccine received pushback from students who say it is important to receive a vaccine.

“Financial consequences do not seem to be the right answer that will actually have long-term benefits,” junior psychology major Danyella Kaplan told the Chronicle. “If students choose to be unvaccinated, having them take a class on the importance of practicing safety measures would be a more beneficial measure to take.”

Quinnipiac University will require unvaccinated students to undergo weekly COVID-19 tests, fining these students $100 for each failure to appear for a test.

“I would have preferred it if Quinnipiac simply banned unvaccinated (without an exemption) students from returning, which is what myself and many friends thought was originally going to happen,” junior nursing major Jack Quinn said.

While the school merely recommends that vaccinated students obtain a negative PCR test within five days of returning to campus, it requires unvaccinated students to do so.