🚀 go-pugleaf

In last articles, posted in uw.general, Mariaurora Mota ask about some
comments on unfairness with foreign students. 

Before I come to Canada, I knew that my wife and me (outside the university)
can't work. Also, I knew that the tuition fee were high and that the 
scolarships programs for foreign students were very limited. In other
words, I didn't expect an "easy" life.

However, I found other incredible things:

a) we pay unployment insurance and Canada Pension Plan premiums from
which we are not allowed to collect benefits (and this is under the law!)

b) that the tuition fee depends in your citizenship. This problem is
worst in Ontario, where in some universities the fee for a foreign
student is 4 times the fee of a canadian student. Now, the only two
provinces that do not impose differential fees are Manitoba and
Newfoundland. Also, in fact, here foreign student means a visa student.

An interesting article in this problem, written by Valerie Shore,
appears in the last issue of "University Affairs" ("Canada closing doors on
foreign students", page 16). Two other articles in the same issue
are related (pages 12 and 17). Some facts mentioned in the article are:

a) the enrolment of foreign students declined 20% in the last two years

b) in many areas, a high percentage of research, is made by graduate foreign
students

c) 4500 jobs are supported by foreign students

The mentioned article is based in a report from the Canadian Bureau for
International Education called "Closing the doors?". I would like to
insert a sentence from that source:

"If this happens (that this problem remains unresolved), Canada risks
losing its already tenuous claim to world class status in postsecondary
education. There will be serious repercussions, not only in our scientific
and academic communities, but in the cultural, economic and diplomatic areas
as well."

Important questions are: Are the universities and student federations
worried about this problem? Exist good reasons for maintain this policies? 

					Ricardo Baeza-Yates

Mail personal comments to rabaeza@watdaisy

-- 
rabaeza@waterloo.csnet         1-519-885-1211 ext. 6709  Ricardo Baeza
rabaeza%waterloo@csnet-relay.arpa                        CS Dept., U. Waterloo 
{allegra,decvax,inhp4,utzoo}!watmath!watdaisy!rabaeza    Waterloo, Ont. N2L3G1