International students at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst refused to pay an international student fee that appeared on tuition bills due this month.
Out of the university’s entire student population of 24,000, UMass houses 1,659 international students, 200 of which protested the fee.
According to the university’s website, failure to pay all university bills can result in the dropping of the student’s entire class list, suspended meal privileges in campus dining halls, eviction from residence halls, canceled registration for the current semester and a registration hold for future semesters. For international students, unpaid bills can also result in the loss of their student visas.
UMass spokesman Patrick J. Callahan said the $65 fee is designed to fill the $240,000 deficit in the university’s international program created by a cut in the program’s funding in the wake of a $40 million budget reduction last year.
Callahan also said some critics of the international fee claim the fee is discriminatory toward international students, and that the students are essentially paying a fee to pay for their own surveillance. But Callahan noted that the fee is only to recoup costs lost to the program after budget cuts, and a portion of the fee is mandated by the federal government to fund the Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems. SEVIS is an international student-tracking program designed by Congress to prevent terrorists from entering America via student visas.
Callahan said the fee will only generate $200,000 of the $240,000 debt at UMass.
“Some small portion of that fee does pay for some of the stuff having to do with SEVIS,” Callahan said. “That is something that is mandated by the U.S. federal government; we have to do it.”
University of Wisconsin Interim Director of International Student Services Pap Sarr said UW international students staged a similar protest on campus last spring against UW’s international student fee.
Sarr said Chancellor John Wiley appointed a task force to assess the fee in response to the protest. The task force later obliterated the international student fee.
But Sarr said after state budget cuts to UW the university was unable to fund the program, so it created a gift account to fund the international-students program.
“We were able to function one year with the money from different gift donors,” Sarr said.
Callahan said international students were not the only students who suffered increased fees on campus. “All students received fee increases this year due to budget cuts,” he said. “There was an increase that affected the entire student body — it’s a budgetary problem.”
UMass does not plan to take any additional action past the consequences posted on its website. “In order to maintain good standing (with the university), folks have to pay their bills,” Callahan said. “If you don’t pay your bills, you’re not in good standing with the university.”
Sarr said the protest at UW was effective because several different programs and organizations spoke out against the fee, along with the international student organizations.
“It was a joint effort for the fee together — the campus listened to [the international students] and values them, and wanted them to be welcome here,” Sarr said. “I think it’s a great idea that [international students at UMass] were able to join forces and talk about the fee.”
