I am an international student at Carleton University, and I pay four times the tuition fee a domestic student pays. I do not have enough fingers and toes on my body to count the number of times I have asked myself, why do international students pay so much just to go to a different country to study?
Turns out, it’s because opportunity is a commodity.
The fact that I pay a fortune to get an education at an overseas institution is not unique—most international students who study in the West do. Is the reason why I pay so much for my education because Western institutions believe it is more precious or valuable to me, a student of colour from outside Canada? Or is it because they consider their degrees less valuable to my Canadian friends?
Like most social systems today, these roots rest in colonialism. The commodity of opportunity operates in a cycle and through the course of time, it becomes a positive feedback loop.
The life cycle of the complex relationship between international and domestic students’ opportunities begins at the university. It is important to consider why universities choose to accept international students in the first place. For the most part, this decision is mostly self-serving, boiling down to the benefits of diversity and economic boosters for the country of study.
First, having a body of international students not only brings racial diversity to a school, but also helps advance multicultural scholarship—moving towards deconstructing systemic barriers to higher education for students of colour in traditionally white education systems.
This is especially important as many universities move towards decolonization, attempting to shed light on the development of historically Eurocentric education systems that largely remain inaccessible for many students around the world. In a way, international students represent one flux of many in the system of inclusive globalization.
Perhaps more importantly, schools also know international students are often willing to pay much more than their domestic counterparts for an overseas education. A Western education can help international students “stay ahead” of students who obtain their education back home.
Students will go to great lengths to get a handful of this supposed “better” education, thus rendering the human right of education more of a product restricted to a select few. Those who can financially afford to develop better language (mostly English) skills and literally step out of their comfort zone will succeed in the race toward employability. Others will inevitably struggle.
As my friend put it, “It’s all a business,” and through this business mindset the idea of opportunity as a commodity is created. The association of affluent backgrounds with the title “international student” also contributes to this idea that heightened tuition for international students is justified.
Earlier this year, I asked my father whether he believed I was occupying a seat that could have been a domestic student’s. He nodded solemnly. Guilt washed over me. I was entangled in the messy dichotomy of getting a “good” education versus giving way to those who needed the opportunity more.
My offer of admission required a higher-than-average grade total (when compared to domestic students), as well as a well-rounded CV full of extracurricular activities and leadership positions. However, I still feel as if my ability to afford an international education, or a university education in general, is worthy of guilt. Particularly for the myriad of domestic students who cannot afford a university education financially, but also due to a host of other factors such as homelessness, poverty and abusive households, my occupation of an available seat is unjust.
It seems that university admission revolves greatly around assumed affluence and its unequal distribution. The wealth of an international university applicant is largely judged by their bank account and transcripts, not by their potential to create societal change and add value to Canadian society. This is made especially clear in universities’ decisions to hike international tuition in order to account for lost revenues as a result of the pandemic, rendering international students cash cows more than anything else.
As it is a challenge to measure these ‘softer’ categories of evaluation, focusing applications on these is an unlikely solution. In that case, yes, international students are taking away opportunities from domestic students who may not have any other places to turn for a post-secondary education than their local universities. The world is a rat race, and the finish line has been placed by schools looking to milk as much revenue as possible from tuition fees.
Maybe now is a good time to take an approach that takes into account merit and circumstances (i.e. necessity and opportunity) when selecting who gets access to an education, rather than relying solely on empirical qualifications. Perhaps then we would be able to provide equal opportunity instead of doling out free guilt and validating our theft by landing high-paying jobs or striving for high grades.
Featured image by Isabel Harder.
