When I first arrived at University College Dublin, the economic crisis had just put the Irish economy into a tailspin. The radio projected that half of all construction workers would be laid off, the newspaper proclaimed financial Armageddon and the bars seemed filled with workers returning to their traditional comforts of alcohol and caustic humor. The university itself, however, was gearing up for a storm. Even as a study abroad student, I received protest leaflets handed out in corridors and scattered around classrooms. I heard the rumors of class being cancelled because of the student protests.
What was the big issue? War? The corporations that had just bankrupted the Irish economy? No. The government was considering raising the college registration fee by a whopping 600 euros, which comes to around $1,000. Per year. For a three-year bachelor's program. Note the careful use of the phrase "registration fee." There's no use of the taboo word tuition here. After all, allegations that the fees were tuition in disguise were part of what prompted thousands of students to take to the streets in protest.
It's hard to describe how comical it is to be an American student talking with European protesters about rioting over a $1,000 fee hike. Most striking of all is the sincerity of it. The rioters are not taking to the streets just because they think the government will bend and save them a couple thousand dollars if they put enough pressure on it. They make signs that say, "Because my daddy can't pay" and "H.E. — Not just for the rich" and chant about how they refuse to have their education stolen, and they mean it. They sincerely believe that the principles of higher education are at stake. To an American student, they might as well be explaining the greater intricacies of making a cup of tea — something is lost in translation.
Ireland is not alone in the protesting. Austerity measures brought on by the financial crisis have dragged the issue of student fees into the streets across Europe — protests occurred in Germany in 2009, and, just this December, over 50,000 British students rioted in London and even attacked a car carrying Prince Charles in their frustration. If anything, it's the U.S. that is alone in its tuition prices, not the Irish protestors.
This makes the money-grubbing practices of American universities all the more painful to watch. They realize that American parents' willingness to pay for their children's educations is generally somewhere between $30,000 and "astronomical," and that this is not being properly maximized by foreign universities. For example, the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, a part of Brown's ever-popular Barcelona program, charges around 1,000 euros a year. Of course, they could get a lot more money out of American college students, and they know it. For international students, the rates soar to a mind-boggling 3,420 euros a year. You foreigners! Paying that much for college classes. Suckers, all of you.
It's pretty much the same sad story all across Europe. Universities triple or quadruple their domestic prices for non-EU students, and American students drool over the low prices. Given the recent policy changes, however, this story apparently should have included American college administrators sniffling over their lost revenue. After all, while they're abroad, students are generally living in the dorms of their host university, eating food from local groceries and paying that hiked-up tuition for the college classes their local university is providing. There's not really any opportunity for the home university to charge their students, since they're not really providing anything aside from the occasional follow-up.
However, as Ethan Tobias '12 points out ("Piracy abroad," Jan. 26), Brown has become the latest in a line of universities to decide that this lack of opportunity is a non-issue. The University is now charging you the normal Brown tuition when you study abroad for follow-up calls and simplicity. Now students won't be confused by fee bills that are suddenly thousands of dollars less than before. It's also easier than ever to decide between study abroad programs, because now, they will all require you to take out that second mortgage on your house.
The money-grubbing is embarrassing enough in its own right, but there's evidence that it's legitimately hurting students. The de facto increase in price was immediately followed by a plunge in the number of undergraduates studying abroad to the lowest level ever recorded. The Office of International Programs likes to blame this on the recession, despite the fact that the number of students studying abroad fell by nearly 20 percent precisely in the semester that they implemented the policy and has since shown little sign of recovery. If the numbers are due to the policy change, the University's greed is truly robbing its students of — as I can say from personal experience — the opportunity of a lifetime.
Michelle Uhrick '11 hates telling student protestors what college in the U.S. costs. She can be reached at michelle_uhrick@brown.edu.
