Some 5,000 current and former UCL students are seeking compensation, alleging the university breached their tuition contracts after teaching went online during COVID with restricted access to facilities.

UCL argued against the students' cases going to court, asking the High Court to pause proceedings so that students could first complete the university's own internal complaints procedure and, if that failed, going through the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA), who received record complaints in 2022.

Read more:
More than 100,000 students try to sue universities of pandemic disruption

But Senior Master at the High Court, Barbara Fontaine, questioned the effectiveness of this process in Monday's judgement, noting that "some of the claimants' concerns about the OIA scheme are valid".

She also raised concerns over "whether UCL and the OIA have sufficient resources to deal with this volume of complaints".

Seventeen other universities have been written to by Student Group Claim, which has brought student claimants together under a group litigation order.

More than 120,000 former and current students have signed up to the legal action.

While the first case to reach court is against UCL, the eventual outcome is likely to set a precedent for many other universities in the country.

Read more:
New drug found to slow Alzheimer's
Sir Elton John gives evidence at Spacey trial
Melanie Sykes says she has Tourette's

Senior Master Fontaine has paused the case for eight months to give the parties time to settle the claims through mediation or other means before going to trial, this period can be cut to four months if no progress is made.

She rejected UCL's attempt to force students to go through its internal complaints procedures and then the OIA.

Ryan Dunleavy is solicitor to Student Group Claim and partner at Harcus Parker: "We have been chasing UCL in writing for more than a year to join us in appropriate settlement talks, which we do not think should be via UCL's own internal complaints procedure.

"If the claims are not settled, they will proceed to trial. The students' argument that they had a right to access the court system has been vindicated."

Shannon Barnes is graduating from UCL after two years of her physiology degree was entirely done online.

She was frustrated by the lack of laboratory work; simplified experiments were undertaken at home with basic equipment.

Her initial complaint to the university over the standard of education she received was rejected by UCL.

Ms Barnes said: "Of course we all want to get the compensation as soon as we can so that UCL and universities across the country can recognise that students didn't get the experience they should have been given.

"It's meant to be the three most memorable years of my life and I feel like it's been tarnished by so many things. I am happy about today; I'm keeping my hopes up."

Professor Kathleen Armour, UCL's vice-provost for education and student experience said: "We are pleased that the High Court has ordered that proceedings be stayed to allow for the parties to attempt to resolve the students' claims without the need for further litigation, and that the court has recognised the part our complaints procedure can play."