Students call for international fee stability

11 October 2007 - For Immediate Use

Students call for international fee stability

As AUSA continues its fee-setting campaign, students showed their support for the grandparenting of international tuition fees this week, and have also expressed concern at reduced levels of services for international students.

At yesterday’s Student Representative Council, students voted in favour of calling on the University to grandparent its international fees.

Grandparenting, as practised by other New Zealand universities(AUT, Massey, and Waikato), means holding a student's level of fees at the same level throughout the normal course of their degree, rather than having them increase every year.

“The University of Auckland claims it ‘grandparents’ its fees by ‘capping’ fee rises at 5%. This is disingenuous to call it grandparenting because it means continuous fee rises during the normal course of a degree,” says Bethanie Maples, AUSA Acting President.

“International students pay tens of thousands of dollars in fees annually, so any percentage rise means a large amount of money for students and their families. This is money that students often divert from their normal living costs, with negative impacts on their health and well-being,” says David Do, AUSA Education Vice President.

Students also voiced their concern at recently reduced opening hours for the International Students Information Centre.

The centre, which provides a variety of services for international students such as referral to pastoral student support and other enquiries, had been open 8:30 to 5pm weekdays. Until further notice it will only be open 9am to 2pm weekdays, almost a 50% cut in opening hours.

”Somehow it doesn’t seem right to reduce service levels for international students when the University is poised to increase their fees for yet another year,” concludes David Do.

The University of Auckland Council is meeting this Monday at 4pm to decide on 2008 fees for domestic and international students. AUSA will be holding a lively and visual student protest before this meeting on Monday afternoon, at the University Clocktower on Princes Street.

ENDS