Former Limestone students owed tuition refunds say university has ghosted them
Two days before Limestone University announced in April it would be forced to close without an immediate infusion of $6 million, online MBA student Michael Thielen received an email reminder from the Gaffney school to pay for his summer classes by the end of the week.
Thielen, a 34-year-old Texas resident, paid $4,037 the same day to enroll in business law and accounting courses.
Two weeks later, Limestone announced its last-ditch fundraising effort had fallen short and the nearly 180-year-old private Christian university would close in a matter of days.
Thielen immediately emailed Limestone’s business office manager to wish her the best and ask about the timeline for processing a tuition refund. Six weeks later, he hasn’t gotten his money back or received any information about when he will.
“I was five classes away from completing my degree,” said Thielen, who works in talent acquisition in the health care sector. “Now I’m out over $4,000, I have to find a new school and I have to pay to (retake) classes, because it’s very rare that another university will accept all of your credits.”
Thielen is not alone. Posters on Facebook and Reddit described a similar experience.
“Were any members of the group students at Limestone University in Gaffney?” Jennifer Hunter-Thomas asked May 20 on Ask Spartanburg’s Facebook page. “If so, have you received your refund for Summer classes?”
One responder said she knew of multiple students, herself included, who were owed money by the university.
Hunter-Thomas, a Spartanburg resident taking online classes toward a bachelor’s degree in business administration, replied that she was in the same boat.
“I keep messaging (the business office manager) and getting automatic replies,” she wrote. “Have you heard anything from the school?”
“Not a thing!” the other student responded. “I have tried calling and emailing multiple people.”
Thielen can relate. The last time he received anything besides an auto-response from anyone at the university was three weeks ago.
In the absence of a response, Thielen disputed the tuition payment with his bank, filed a fraud complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and reached out to several state entities, to no avail.
Last week, he began messaging former Limestone administrators, including former President Nathan Copeland, on LinkedIn.
So far, only one has responded.
“Unfortunately I am no longer employed,” Kelly Tillinghast, Limestone’s former vice president and dean of student success, responded to Thielen last week. “I have no access to my school email or contacts. I’m sorry I can not help.”
The State Media Co. left a message with Limestone and emailed multiple former administrators, but received only auto-responses. The automatic reply from the university’s business office manager said Limestone was “actively processing refunds” and that students would receive a notification once the process was complete.
A former Limestone employee who has been the university’s lone point of contact with the S.C. Commission on Higher Education, which licenses all private colleges and universities in the state, told The State she was “only tying up loose ends” and not authorized to speak on the school’s behalf.
She agreed Tuesday to pass along a message to Limestone’s “chief restructuring officer,” but as of Wednesday, The State had not heard back from anyone associated with the university.
Limestone University’s sudden closure
Limestone announced its closure in late April, just two weeks after launching a fundraising campaign to save the school and a week after the chair of its board of trustees expressed cautious optimism that the cash-strapped university had found a funding solution.
Officials attributed the university’s serious financial challenges to a combination of declining enrollment, rising costs and “long-standing structural pressures facing small, private institutions.”
The school’s enrollment had dropped nearly 44% over the last decade, from 3,214 to 1,807, according to S.C. Commission on Higher Education data, and it was bleeding millions of dollars each year.
An audit completed just one month before Limestone’s closure expressed “substantial doubt” that the university could continue operating.
The school, which had substantially drained its endowment since 2023, would need to find $7.5 million just to meet general expenditures over the next 12 months, auditors found.
“Accordingly,” the auditors wrote, “there is a substantial doubt that the University will be able to pay its obligations as they come due, and this substantial doubt is not alleviated by management’s plans.”
Shortly after Limestone’s board voted to close the school, university faculty passed a unanimous vote of “no confidence” in the school’s president and board, and requested that they not attend graduation ceremonies on May 3.
One former Limestone employee has since filed a class-action lawsuit against the school alleging it violated the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN, by failing to adequately notify its employees of their impending mass layoff.
According to the most recent WARN report posted on the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce website, Limestone informed its 478 employees of their impending termination on April 17, less than two weeks before the university closed its doors.
By law, employers are required to provide written notice at least 60 calendar days in advance of mass layoffs to ensure that workers and their families have time to transition to new jobs.
Hunter-Thomas, the former business student, said she’s upset by the way Limestone has communicated throughout the closure process — from its failure to adequately prepare students and staff to its lack of transparency about tuition refunds.
“I was fortunate that I did have the money saved up and didn’t have to burn up credit cards,” she said. “But others weren’t so fortunate.”
Hunter-Thomas is weighing her transfer options, but said she first needs the $2,500 Limestone owes her to pay for tuition at another school.
“I’m just looking forward to getting my money back and trying to move on with my career,” she said.