美国大学行政与商务管理中的合同责任

Contract Liability Arising from the Administrative-Business Matters in American Higher Education

行政与商务管理是美国高校与学生违约诉讼的一个高发领域。1986～2000年期间，这一领域的违约指控主要来自三个方面：招生录取、学费与资助的变更以及专业学科的调整。在审理过程中，美国法院着重调查这样一些问题：高校和学生之间是否存在合同、学校是否通过免责声明保留了更改合同条款的权力、学校的决定是否具有随意或恶意的性质，以及学校是否为学生提供了合理的替代选择。

Many student-university contract claims arose from administrative-business decisions at U.S. colleges and universities. According to the major findings of this study， between 1986 and 2000， contractual disputes of this type mainly arose from three sources: admissions and readmissions， tuition increase and change in financial aid， and termination of academic programs. In adjudicating such claims， the federal and state courts in the United States primarily looked into questions such as whether there was a contract between the parties， whether the university had the right to change the contractual terms through disclaimers， whether the disputed decisions were made arbitrarily or in bad faith， or whether the university provided reasonable alternatives for the students negatively affected by the proposed change.