Yes, colleges were mostly told to close although some were closing at least for undergraduates before the orders came down.

>The students are askign for partial refunds for tuition, not just room and board. I think this is a fair ask, and should be recompensed in some way or the other.

I'm sympathetic. The students aren't getting what they paid for. It's no one in particular's fault, but the service being paid for is being delivered in degraded form. I'm not sure you can even argue that, in general, the students will still get credit for this semester's courses because some classes probably can't be completed and, for a variety of reasons, many students will probably lose part of this semester and end up tacking on time to their degree as a result.