Basically,he paid enormous amount of money for his education, university took the money but then has acted unreasonably and pretty much defrauded the student.

The good news is that there should be a very long email trail of what has happened so the truth hopefully will be easy to determine.

A few comments from 1st hand experience:

Instructors often have 100% freedom to assign a grade in cases like this (in the case which I know personally, the University’s written policy pretty much says: instructor decides and instructor does not need to give ANY justification).

An interesting aspect here is that “sick grandparents” is a VERY common (may be the most common) FAKE excuse put forward by students. I am not saying that this student lied, but it might be the reason why the instructor thought that the student was lying.

I’m curious, though, what happened to appeal process. I’d expect that in a conflict like this he’d at least get a written explanation of School’s position.

I am actually the student who has filed suit against Columbia School of Nursing.

To briefly address your points:

1. the instructor and course director (acting-director) were both informed 5-6 days in advance of the skills exam I had missed due to a family emergency. Initially there was some confusion as to why I was going to be out-of-town, however, this was clarified it later one-on-one discussion. The course director a few days later had emailed me stating that “arrangements” would be made for me to make-up this missed skills exam. Although I continued to follow up as to when this would take place, I was informed of nothing until I was suddenly and abruptly failed nine days later (via an email…stating that I had not performed the skills test to move on).

Thus, part of my contention is the school stated they would make these make-up arrangments, and instead, decided not to and simply fail me instead.

2. I was never allowed to use the school’s appeal process, despite multiple attempts to enact the process. No one followed through in the administration.

3. Had I known the school would have lied about giving me a make-up date (for 6 skills to be performed which take about 20-25 minutes total), I would have withdrawn from the course and received a “W” rather than an “F”. Thus, I would never have been allowed to be dismissed from the school.

4. Yes, I was a dual degree student studying toward an MS in nursing and an MPH in public health policy. Many student do dual professional degrees (MD/PhD; MD/MBA; MD/MPH; MSN/MPH…etc.). These degrees are not done simultaneously…it’s one degree program at a time. So I was not overwhelmed. I do however attend the School of Public Health full time and work full time as a nurse in a major New York City hospital. I have nearly a 4.0.

5. Yes, I was misquoted by the NY Post–on both instances. The “killing someone” quote was taken out of context and was supposed to refer to an instance where a nurse practitioner student might kill a patient due to malpractice…in those cases it would be reasonable for that individual to fail the course.

If I had received an “F” because of a legitimate reason, then I would have lived with it. However, I believe it was absurdly unfair to fail me because of my family situation and then tell me I was going to have a make-up test and never follow through. Moreover, I get dismissed because of the “F” despite my previous academic standing and multiple recommendations fromo the school’s own faculty and program directors.

Unfortunately, the court was a forced route.

How he feels, or how every attorney he talked to felt?

My own suspicion is that there’s a lot more going on than what is said in the article. Yes, he had a respectable GPA but he was in an accelerated nursing program AND he was simultaneously working on another degree at the same time. These fast track programs are grueling and you basically have to put your life on hold for the duration. Maintaining the grades is just part of it. There is no leeway for absence from clinical obligations and I don’t see how a person can meet all of the demands of the one program while studying full time for a second degree and taking care of all the other things [eating, sleeping, bathing, pooping, etc.] that nurses refer to as ADLs.

Really, I’m kind of glad this guy is off the nursing track. It sounds like he was spreading himself way too thin.