Overseas Fees

DEAR STUDENT DIRECT,

I WAS very glad that you ran a front page exclusive "Teaching Hours Slashed" about how teaching hours at our University have been reduced over the years while fees are increasing. While I applaud the bringing up of this issue, I was disappointed that no mention whatsoever was given to international students' fees in the coverage as if international students were not part of the student population at all.

Your article reads "£34.88 per hour is the...money some undergraduates at this university are forking out...". I would like to point out that international students this year are paying at least three times the fees that home and EU students are paying. International students' fees for arts courses start at £9,500 per year. Students doing science degrees pay £12,500 and students in their clinical years pay £22,100. These fees are also going to be increased for new students this September. If my calculations are right this means £110 per hour is the real sum being paid by some undergrads in this university.

I understand that I am obliged to pay these fees as someone from outside the EU and am not complaining about them, but I would like to point out that reductions in the quality of education in this university negatively affect ALL students, not just local students. When you factor in that besides the high fees, we have to deal with an exchange rate against the pound as well as the fact that many of us are self-sponsoring (i.e. no access to loans) and do not have any access to UK public funds, any deterioration in standards will affect us very personally and very drastically. This university also offers close to no financial assistance to international students who cannot afford to come or who meet financial difficulties while studying. Many of the loans, grants, bursaries and incentives offered to local students are often completely unavailable to us.

Many international students come from developing countries where the quality of tertiary education is not as good as that of the UK. It is a great shame that after coming all the way here and at great personal or familial expense they have to meet disappointment.

If The University of Manchester aims to be one of the world's best and would like to be a truly 'international' university then it should take heed of the needs and interests of international students as well as local students, not just claim that it has a large and dynamic international student population and benefit from our contributions.

Yours truly,
Joshua Chong