Pro-Palestinian protests continue to rock colleges in the United States, and administrators are starting to hear from more than just the students.

Parents paying for their children to attend elite institutions are getting fed up with universities making it easier for students to spend more time at demonstrations and bystanders getting locked out of their dorms.

As classes and finals get canceled and students are forced to avoid their own campuses, parents have resorted to contacting their schools for refunds and have reconsidered their positions as donors to colleges.

“They are not getting the education they expected and paid for,” Zev Gewurz, a lawyer whose daughter goes to Barnard College in New York City, told the Wall Street Journal.

Barnard is a prime example of a costly education. The university costs about $90,000 to attend this academic year, more than what many families make in a year.

According to a 2023 Sallie Mae report, typical families need parents to account for about half of their students’ college tuition. Students account for less than a quarter. 

Barnard ranks No. 11 in national liberal arts colleges as a women’s college affiliated with Columbia, which cranks up the heat for the college to take appropriate action.

Gewurz thinks Barnard has provided an “inadequate response” to what he calls hate speech, but he has reassured his daughter. 

“I try to tell her that this is not her fault and that she is living in a moment in history and needs to keep her head high,” he said.

Lingering on the other side of the Israeli-Palestinian spectrum lies more frustration with colleges.

A parent of a student at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia, Sarah Fanning, doesn’t understand why colleges feel the need to arrest protesters for trespassing, some of whom could be students who live on campus. The university arrested 12 protesters, nine of them students.

This has caused Fanning to reconsider donating to the school unless the university chooses to support the students publicly. UMW President Troy Paino said events “that do not follow instructions, attempt to disrupt classes or activities, or endanger the health, safety, and security of our campus community will not be allowed.”

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Christopher Rim, founder and CEO of Command Education, which helps students complete college applications for competitive schools, said he received calls from parents who want partial or full refunds from the schools.

“Physically blocking their child from attending class or a lecture hall is 100% not what they signed up for,” Rim said. “They are beyond upset at what’s going on.”