According to the new policy, international students will have to pay or renew their dues prior to the registration date (April 11). Without paying the insurance fees, international students will not be allowed to register for their fall semester classes.
A sum of $908 is not a small amount, what more students will have to get them ready in less than a month. If I have not mistaken, the mass e-mail that was sent out to the students regarding this new policy came only this month, giving students insufficient time to react to it.
Even though we have talked about the restructuring of the policy last semester, it was not brought to our attention that the new policy is going to be implemented immediately for the coming semester.
Hence, I foresee that many students will have to struggle through this month, trying to gather the 900-plus dollars so they are eligible to register for classes.
The previous payment method allows international students to pay their dues in late July so they can still register for classes in early April. However, it was observed that some international students tend to forget about the due date and hence had their registered classes dropped because they have not paid the fees in the summer.
Hence the new policy: to reduce the chance of having their classes dropped, students are now forced to pay the due three months ahead.
In a way, Juliet Ogembo, a member of the Cultural and Diversity committee of Student Government was right. She said that the new policy is almost like a punishment for those international students who are paying the dues on time. Now, they will have to suffer along with those who paid it late last year.
I myself may have trouble fogging out that large sum. I believe that for most of us internationals, it takes time for our parents to wire the money from oversea, not to forget about the value of the currency of United States being greater than most of the internationals' currency value. In my case, $908 is approximately Malaysian Riggit RM2,780. That to my family may be a bit of an issue.
If we were to come up with the money on our own, it could be close to impossible. Given the amount of hours we are allowed to work on-campus, the total of one month's paycheck will not even cover half the amount of the due.
Hence, I strongly urge the administration and authorities to consider creating a way for us internationals to pay by installment. Instead of paying the dues in one lump sum, students may be allowed to pay a "commitment fee" of couple hundreds, before clearing the due in summer.
In this way, students do not have to be stressed about coming up with such a large amount of money in such a short period of time. Unless they do not want us to register for our classes.
So let's cross our fingers and hope for a way out, or else, many of us will just have to come back next semester, trying to squeeze ourselves into the leftover seats in classes we don't necessary need to take (international students must maintain a full-time student status with a minimum of 12 credits registered in a semester).
