Forget lawsuits. Forget the courts.“Forget all this silliness,” said lawyer Steve Wandro with Wandro & Associates, which along with the Erbe Law Firm in Des Moines filed one of at least two lawsuits this week against the University of Iowa, seeking class action status for it yanking scholarships from thousands of students to save money.

“Rescind the order,” he said. “Go ahead and give these kids their scholarships and let them be.”

The lawsuits, one on behalf of student Benjamin Muller and another on behalf of student Jenna Pokorny, accuse the UI of unconstitutionally depriving them — and 3,015 students in all — of financial aid they were offered and accepted.

In response to millions in state budget cuts, UI President Bruce Harreld last week announced his institution was revoking several scholarship programs not based on need or academic merit.

That means students who were offered assistance for the duration of their UI careers will not get the expected aid starting this fall.

The suits accuse the university of cutting the scholarships without warning and ask a judge to recover the value of the revoked aid along with legal expenses.

UI spokeswoman Jeneane Beck said dropping the scholarship programs is expected to save the university $4.3 million, part of the administration’s response to state funding cuts starting in the current budget year that have reached $20.8 million for the Board of Regents overall and $9.2 million for the UI specifically.

Wandro said his phone this last week has been “ringing all the time” with students interested in adding their name to the lawsuit, should it gain class-action status.

If the university were to reinstate the aid, Wandro said he’ll drop the case and hold his student clients harmless.

“I will not charge them one cent,” he said.

UI officials said the awards came with notice the money was contingent on available funds. But some students dispute that — asserting in the suits to have been stripped of the aid “without warning, without due process, and without just compensation.”

Muller’s lawsuit argues the students “obtained a vested property interest” once they accepted the offers, and the UI cannot now deprive them of that without due process or compensation.

“These students were granted this money — it’s theirs — and the government can’t take it from them,” Wandro said. “These are students who have used the money already. … Their expectation was that they would get it.”

Pokorney contends she bypassed other educational opportunities to enroll at the UI based on it offering her two scholarships totaling $12,000 over four years.

Lawmakers have spoken out about the scholarship cuts, including Speaker of the House Rep. Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, who called it “politics at its worst.”

UI officials had called on lawmakers to limit cuts and even increase support for higher education. Before the Legislature approved the cuts, they warned the state that financial aid was on the chopping block if state support waned.