Cost of Education

About a week and half ago I read an article in the daily universe that BYU was changing its international student policy. According to the article, international students will have to pay a $4,000 deposit to attend BYU starting summer 2010 semester.

This has sparked a large debate. Some people are saying the deposit is a positive thing. It seems like it was designed to help students deal with the financial problems they may face after coming to BYU. Others say the policy is discriminatory and that people are being punished for not being American (1). Before you form an opinion, you might want to know what exactly this deposit is.

Well, according to the daily universe the deposit will be used in this way:

"Before graduating, international students may use $3,000 of the deposit money after demonstrating financial hardship; the remaining $1,000 will be held and used for a plane ticket to return home, Westerberg said. While the money is held by BYU, it will accumulate interest in an escrow account returned to the student upon graduation."

Apparently the previous policy allowed students to access their deposit after their first semester at BYU (2). There is no mention in the articles of whether or not the deposit itself was higher before.

BYU is not the only school doing this. Many schools require international student deposits. From just a few minutes googling I found schools with international student deposits ranging from $1,000-$5,000 dollars. But is it fair? It's hard to say. I can see the advantage of being prepared for unexpected financial responsibilities. Many international students are limited in the amount that they can work here (for instance students working on campus often can't go over 20 hours a week) and learning to manage money is something most students deal with when they enter college. However on the other hand I know if I had been asked to pay $4,000 in addition to all the other fees I had to pay when I came to BYU it would have been difficult for me. I know there are people out there who get by one semester at a time. Could this policy take a chance away from a deserving student? There are many students that think so. In fact, there is a facebook group protesting the new policy. They are proposing a $1,000 flight deposit instead and requesting people to sign an online petition (3).

I'm not really interested in writing a big, loud opinion about this. I just think this is an important issue. It's amazing how much can be going on in your own community without you knowing.



Currently: Nervous about midterms!

1. Read the full Daily Universe article here.
2. Read the Daily Herald article here.
3. View the petition against a new BYU international student facebook group here.