Last night Student Council passed a piece of legislation that renewed the contract for the ad hoc committee on international student financial aid.
“I think this committee did fantastic work last year working on an issue that in the past hasn’t gotten as much attention as it truly deserves,” Council President Matt Schrimper said. “Ten percent of the student body is international students, and I think there’s a large portion of the student community that this is really going to benefit.”
The committee was created last fall and worked to raise awareness of — and to address the problem of — a lack of financial aid for international students.
“I am an international student but I’ve been living in the U.S. for a while and I have friends abroad who really want to come to the U.S. to study, but financially tuition is a really big factor when students are applying.” Ad-Hoc Committee Chair Batkhuu Dashnyam said. “Even if you’re very talented and bright, if your parents can’t afford tuition, you can’t go.”
If the University were to start offering financial aid to international students, this practice could benefit the University in multiple ways, Dashnyam said.
“I think if U.Va. offers student financial aid to international students, not only would our ranking on the international scale go up, but I think in the long run there would be more qualified and high-caliber students here,” Dashnyam said, noting that U.S. universities that do offer international aid to students are ranked high globally.
One of the ways Dashnyam aims to achieve the committee’s goal of creating these financial aid opportunities is to increase communication with University administration officials.
“Our goal is to raise awareness of problems but also to engage the administration and make them understand that the lack of financial aid for international students is a big problem.” Dashnyam said.
As Foreign Student Advisor Richard Tanson said, however, the University is already aware of the issue.
“I applaud their efforts, but I can tell you that the University is aware of this need and it is something that we work concertedly on, especially under the leadership of the new vice provost.” Tanson said.
Still, Dashnyam said he thinks the committee did a good job of reaching out to administration officials last year.
“I think last year we were very successful in making people understand and now we’re moving on to the second phase, which is actually trying to figure out who the potential donors are.” Dashnyam said.
Dashnyam plans to work with administration officials to reach out to international alumni for possible donations.
“The problem was that administration didn’t give the international community that much attention, and over the years their relationship was not very robust,” Dashnyam said. “So the administration is trying to rekindle that relationship. Since this process is in early stages it’s very hard for the University to approach them and ask them for money. We kind of have to take it gradually step by step, and once we reach that stage we might be able to approach them.”
Tanson said the administration is open to working with the committee on the issue of aid for international students.
“In the University’s efforts to internationalize we may see some forward movement,” Tanson said. “What the University will ultimately do, I will defer to the vice provost. These are ultimately his decisions; however, it’s gong to require efforts of many players, including students. It’s a partnership.”
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