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NEWS
| October 17, 2003
Tuition and Fees
Foreigners won’t receive future
tuition set-asides
The Financial Aid director says
the extra money is reserved for U.S. citizens.
By Chris
Baggott
The Shorthorn staff
International students won’t see any of the financial aid
generated by future tuition increases, Financial Aid Director Karen
Krause says.
The university’s 3,026 international students will be subject
to the same increases as others but aren’t eligible to receive
the new funds.
Administrators have asked for a $15-per-credit-hour increase in
the spring and $20-per-credit-hour increase in the fall with additional
increases for upper-level and graduate engineering and nursing courses.
That proposal is being debated — and possibly modified —
by the Tuition Review Committee. State law mandates that any tuition
increase will include a 20 percent set-aside for need-based financial
aid.
Krause said a limited amount of state-funded financial aid is available
to international students through the Texas Public Education Grants
program. None of the new revenue, estimated at $4.5 million in the
proposal, will enrich the program.
“The new money created by the set-aside is mainly for Texas
residents,” Krause said. “It all goes into a new grant
program.”
International students won’t benefit because they don’t
pay federal income or state taxes, foreign student adviser Ching-Hsing
Li said.
Li said there are no plans to create aid programs for international
students.
“I don’t think there’s really anything else we
can do right now,” she said.
Li said international students must depend on scholarships or enrollment
loans, which are available to undergraduates with at least 2.0 grade
point averages who have taken 12 credit hours at the university.
A graduate student must have a 3.0 GPA or better and have taken
nine hours at the university.
Krause said the loans are short-term fixes for students who can’t
afford to pay their tuition.
“It’s really a temporary loan program,” she said.
The loan “does have to be paid back in the semester it’s
taken.”
Li said some international students pay tuition via work-study jobs.
During their first year in the country, international students have
to stay on campus for work, she said. After they have been here
a year, they can apply for jobs off campus with approval from the
Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, she said.
International Office leaders cannot predict if tuition hikes will
cause decreased international enrollment. There are too many variables
involved to make an accurate prediction, Li said.
“People always say, ‘What’s going to happen?’
but, for example, after Sept. 11 people said we would lose students
and that didn’t happen,” she said.
Whether they are planning to leave the university, some international
students say they are not happy about paying for other students’
financial aid.
Chan Park, an accounting graduate student, said he pays about $4,300
to take three classes at the university. He said he is trying to
get a scholarship to help his family pay for school.
“I understand that this university is supposed to support
citizens,” he said. “But I think they should at least
help international students.”
Gaurav Keswani, a mechanical and aerospace engineering graduate
student, said he thinks the university shouldn’t raise tuition
to find new funding.
“They should be focusing on increasing funds through research,”
he said.
The problem is that the university has too many students to support,
said Ankrit Tiwari, an electrical engineering graduate student.
“They are increasing enrollment like crazy,” he said.
“This is not the way the university should work.”
ClarificatioN
Due to incorrect information given to The Shorthorn, this story
should have said international students cannot receive financial
aid, including work-study positions, because they are not U.S. citizens.
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