Members of the University’s international community gathered in a roundtable dialogue with Chancellor Sean O’Keefe on Thursday night to address their concerns toward rising tuition costs and the University’s restrictions on the health insurance it offers to students.
Francisco Aguilar, president of the International Cultural Center, which hosted the meeting, said the event was a “beautiful discussion.”
“O’Keefe is one of the busiest people on this campus, and we are very glad that he took the time to come listen to the concerns the international community faces,” Aguilar said.
Amaury Parcero, an industrial engineering senior, who addressed the chancellor about the affordability of the University, said she is worried how recent tuition hikes will affect international students.
“Tuition has gone up by more than $1,000 since I have been a student here,” Parcero said. “That is a lot of money to anyone, but it’s even more to a student who comes from Venezuela to go to school.”
O’Keefe said the tuition increases come as a result of taxpayers wanting to take care of students within their state as opposed to non-resident students.
“This is something that is faced in every state in the country,” O’Keefe said. “Taxpayers want to pay for students in their state to go to a University, and non-resident students can make up the difference with a higher tuition payment. It’s not a bias against international students, it’s a bias against any non-resident students.”
O’Keefe also said the University is looking into offering more scholarships to
international students as tuition continues to rise.
“We are working to bring this University to the level of a ‘tier one’ research university,” O’Keefe said. “The more competitive we become, the more we have the opportunity to defray expenses. We all just have to pay a little more along the way.”
Rohit Sharma, secretary for the International Student Association and a graduate student, told O’Keefe during the discussion that he resented that the international community wasn’t consulted about raising tuition prices.
“We weren’t even informed about the decisions being made that affected us,” Sharma said to the chancellor.
But O’Keefe said he could only offer an apology to the international community for not listening to its complaints about rising tuition costs.
“On behalf of the University, I apologize for how that situation was handled,” O’Keefe said. “There is no excuse for that, and we will handle situations such as this better in the future.”
Richard Vlosky, a renewable natural resources professor, said after the meeting that he had never heard a chancellor apologize on behalf of a university.
“It really shows that he is sensitive to the needs of the international community,” Vlosky said.
Tao Feng, a graduate student, told O’Keefe his primary concern as an international student is his health insurance. Feng said he receives insurance from a program offered through the University, but admitted the insurance is becoming too expensive for many international students to afford.
“Health insurance is most important to us because we are so far away from our home countries,” Feng said in the roundtable.
O’Keefe said the University will look at the programs universities nationwide use to provide health insurance and revealed that the situation is not one that just international students are enduring.
“I want to find out the policies other states use to make health insurance available,” O’Keefe said to Feng. “If there is some common standard that we can use to address health insurance, I want to find it. This is a problem that is not exclusive to international students. Many, many students face the same problem.”
At the end of the event, Aguilar said he was satisfied with O’Keefe’s response to the issues brought to him by international students and was optimistic about the possibility of future dialogues.
“We covered a lot of issues that are very important to the international community,” Aguilar said. “We look forward to continuing these discussions in the future.” Aguilar said.