Catalogs as Contracts

The Institution-Student Contract

Over time, courts have considered institutional publications that describe policies or procedures as the bases of agreements between students and institutions. Courts have made use of any number of official college and university publications such as catalogs, bulletins, and course syllabi, a topic over which there is an amazing dearth of litigation, as well as oral communications by faculty members, deans, and advisors, in order to assess the mutually obligatory relationship between institutions and students. In fact, a 1972 study noted that provisions of the student-institution contract could be uncovered in statements from documents, including applications, catalogs, bulletins, and formal policy statements.

Scholars have noted that, in their basic form, contracts between students and institutions of higher learning are established by the oral and written representations made by the parties from the point of application and throughout students' tenure at colleges and universities. These representations can be included in such publications as application forms, brochures, catalogs, and course descriptions as well as in oral representations. Although courts have addressed numerous types of university publications such as applications, housing contracts, and even oral statements with varying degrees of scrutiny, the primary document examined is the college or university catalog.

While contract law is applicable to both the public and private sector, the majority of cases concerning representations in college catalogs have emanated from the private sector, because their students are typically precluded from the protection of constitutional due process. For this reason, these students must rely heavily on representations made in institutional catalogs or other publications as bases for definitions of their relationships with institutions.

Some scholars posit that the breadth of contract theory precludes uniform application to higher education because of the multifaceted nature of college and university operations. Courts adhere closely to contract theory in some areas and apply it more liberally in others. For example, legal scholars have pointed out that in academic and disciplinary actions, courts tend to defer to institutions while simultaneously regarding the relationship between student and institution as contractual. Some critics interpret this dichotomy as precluding adequate protection for students, because it permits institutions to base their obligations to students on assertions made in collegiate literature. Others have suggested that because materials such as catalogs and bulletins are not drafted to be contracts, they are vague and amended with ease at the will of institutional decision makers. Still others assert that although catalogs may describe the mutual expectations of institutions and students, they do not capture the entire relationship or adequately reflect the totality of students' expectations.

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