International Socialists

Kevin H

Approximately 1 in 10 students on campus each day is an international student. Unfortunately, in the last few years, international fees have risen at an alarming rate. This is harmful for all students.
The “necessity” of this has been used to justify pushing up domestic fees and cutbacks in a growing number of departments. At the same time, some people irrationally blame the increasing number of international students for the steadily worsening conditions for students and lecturers. Money is slashed from practically every budget. This argument has more to do with racism than with genuine concern for our universtities.
Like domestic students, International students’ fees normally rise by about 5% per annum - because international students pay more, this means much higher increases in real terms. A 5% increase for domestic students means an increase of something in the order of $25 - $30 a paper; for international students, this can mean up to an extra $700 a year for a normal course and more for a professional course such as medicine or dentistry. Overall, they already pay approximately four times as much as domestic students. For international students doing a bachelor of dental surgery, fees for next year have increased by $1,884. Pre-clinical med fees rose by a staggering $2,370 per annum this year.
International students who aren’t fortunate enough to have scholarships have to survive off what money they’ve either saved up before coming to Dunedin, what they’re are able to make working part time during the year, or what they can save working back home each holiday. Furthermore, as the currencies can fluctuate dramatically, it makes it very difficult to predict how far money from overseas will last in New Zealand.
International students have almost no ability to defend themselves from these raising costs. They have no representation on university councils except for the token representation that OUSA is granted. To make matters worse, many students have left by the time the university sets fees for the following year. Many do not feel confident enough to make their voices heard.  Expulsion is as good as deportation.
However, this does not mean that international students are the only ones who should care about what the university is doing. Ever since National abolished the $1250 “flat fee” that Labour had imposed the year before in 1989, universities have attempted to supplement their income by squeezing students for every penny they can. It did not take long before the bureaucrats who oversee the running of our national universities started to use the escalating international student fees to justify the gross inflation of domestic fees as well.
The only way to stop the university from putting up fees for all students is to fight back. All students should be involved for fighting for free tertiary education. Universities should be places that focus on learning and sharing knowledge, rather than a corporate institution. Major decisions that affect the university should be democratically decided by the majority of staff and students combined.