Merrill Hall on the University of Maine Farmington in May 2020. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Thousands of current and former students in the University of Maine System have begun receiving partial refunds of tuition and fees as part of a $2.15 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit over online learning during the coronavirus pandemic.

About 16,180 students who were enrolled in the university system in the spring 2020 semester are eligible for the payments, which range from $20 to $573 depending on the campus they attended and the amount of tuition or fees they actually paid.

The payments come after a settlement was finalized in July between the system and students, ending a class-action lawsuit that demanded partial refunds because of the system’s response to the pandemic.

The suit, filed in Cumberland County Superior Court, contended that the system breached its contract with students when classes and other services they had paid tuition and fees for were largely moved online following spring break, which coincided with the start of the pandemic in Maine.

The lawsuit is similar to dozens brought by college and university students around the country against their respective institutions, many of which also have agreed to multimillion-dollar settlements.

The University of Maine System said Wednesday that it stands by its decision to tell students not to return to campus at the time, a move that it said was necessary to comply with government orders and to protect public health while also offering students a pathway to continue their studies.

“Guided by science and the best interest of our students, Maine’s public universities were a leader in making a timely transition to online learning as an unprecedented global pandemic that ultimately took the lives of more than one million of our fellow Americans started to spread,” Chancellor Dannel Malloy said in a written statement.

“By doing so, our system maintained access to high-quality education and research learning, and kept our campuses and Maine communities among the nation’s safest. We stand by that life-saving action and continue to take great pride in how our students, faculty, and staff adapted and innovated in ways that have forever transformed access to postsecondary education and opportunity.”

John Turcotte, an attorney for students in the case, said he was not able to contact lead plaintiff Hunter Stewart for an interview Wednesday.

Stewart, who was a student at the University of Maine in Orono in the spring of 2020, said in an affidavit filed in the case that he and other students did not receive the in-person campus-based programs they had applied to and signed up for that semester.

“Being a student at UMaine Orono meant access to campus, facilities, labs, libraries, classroom instruction, study halls, in-person learning, face-to-face interactions and all the benefits associated with the Orono campus,” Stewart wrote. He said he wasn’t able to access those things for a large part of the semester.

“Instead, the university and/or system kept my prepaid money and failed to deliver the services owed to me and my fellow students,” Stewart wrote.

Turcotte said individual students are receiving between $20 and $573 each depending on the campus where they were enrolled and the amount of tuition or fees they paid.

Checks were mailed to eligible students on Sept. 23, said Madely Nava, who is managing the case for Apex Class Action, the third-party organization charged with distributing the settlement funds. Students did not have to do anything to opt-in to the payment, and should automatically receive a check if they are eligible and were enrolled during the spring 2020 semester.

The $2.15 million settlement allows the university system and students and alumni to avoid full litigation that would be costly and time-consuming, Samantha Warren, a spokesperson for the system, said in an email Wednesday.

Students who were enrolled in the University of Maine in Orono are receiving a partial refund of their spring 2020 tuition and some fees, while students at other campuses are receiving a partial refund of some fees from the same semester, Warren said.

Students who enrolled in online only classes at the beginning of the semester, who paid no tuition or fees or who left the system prior to March 16, 2020, are not eligible to collect any refund, according to the settlement agreement. Attorney fees also will be paid from the $2.15 million settlement fund and could amount to $716,666, which is one-third of the total fund.

Anyone who has a question about the settlement, including about their individual payment information, should contact Apex directly at claims@apexclassaction.com or 800-355-0700, Warren said. There is also a website, umsrefundlawsuit.com, set up with information about the settlement.

Separate from the class-action settlement, the system immediately reimbursed students living on campus during the spring 2020 semester for unused room and board.

Additionally, the system distributed more than $45 million in funds provided by Congress through the U.S. Department of Education in the form of emergency grants for student expenses related to the temporary disruption of campus operations.

Other universities around the country have settled similar lawsuits, each agreeing to pay millions of dollars to students enrolled during the spring 2020 semester.

American University and George Washington University in Washington, D.C., each agreed to $5.4 million settlements with their former students. Johns Hopkins University paid out $6.6 million, the University of Pennsylvania paid out $4.5 million and Quinnipiac University in Connecticut paid out $2.5 million.

Penn State reportedly reached a preliminary settlement agreement with its former students last month and could pay out a total of $17 million, according to news reports.