Fee’ding well?

Feedom of IC

Another week and another late night. Also, of course, another hasty and frantic sprint to the finish.

This week, we looked into all of the fees charged to international students by the Russell Group. What we found was that Imperial was significantly higher than the average, and that in most cases we were the highest. Only Oxford tipped us off the top spot for some categories (however, if you take the cost of living into account it is once again Imperial that is on top).

Why are the fees so high? There are the understandable points about the fact that we are in London and that we are a purely science university, which means each student takes more money to train. Although the London point is lessened by UCL, Kings, et al (I feel like I’m referencing again) being much lower than us. Even taking into account those points, some of the fees seem just way too high.

Medicine is the highest, at £40,000 a year. A year! Ouch, that hurts. Here is the question though: for what? They get exactly the same lecturers, firms, and so forth, as the home students, so why are they charged so much more? Possibly it’s to subsidise the home students, but is it okay that that’s happening? Or is there a cheeky little extra bonus of Imperial chucked in there?

Why are people willing to pay the fees? Well, one word: prestige. It’s a good degree, so therefore is a good “investment”, but degreesshouldn’t be purely an investment, and fees shouldn’t be charged based purely on that.

I’m worried that they are essentially pricing out a lot of people from applying to Imperial. Yes, as an international student, you would have to pay higher fees anyway. So you could argue that some international students are priced out from the off, but you should aim to let as many people as possible be able to apply (ideally all, but that’s not going to happen). Then you can pick the best, not the richest.

Another point is that it really isn’t fair to international students to use the fact that they are willing to pay such high fees as an excuse to just pick a high figure and charge away. Unfortunately, systems are systems: now, everything is set in place, and so money is going to be allocated with an expected income. This means it’s likely that fees will only rise. That’s a depressing thought.

Are international students willing to pay that much for the Imperial degree? Well, yes, they are if they are here. However, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Allow me to make a rushed analogy: I could, perhaps, if I were more co-ordinated and had bigger pockets in my coat, steal a chocolate bar from the Library. I choose not to (JCR has a wider selection... I really hope no-one looks at the CCTV images – joking, obviously) because I deem it to be wrong.

HEAR me now

The Higher Education Achievement Record was recently announced. This is big news, as it could essentially change how your degree looks. I, personally, think that having a permanent and difficult to make up record of extra-curricular interests is a good idea. It benefits everyone. You gain from it, as it shows you are more than just one single grade on a piece of paper, as well as allowing you to be credited officially for things you like to do anyway (bit like me with this paper actually...). Employers will find it useful as it means they can see what sort of person they want, and choose more easily. Also, it means they don’t play a cat and mouse game in terms of the classic “is this person in front of me exaggerating the truth when they say they once out sprinted Usain Bolt”.