Tufts' Office of Residential Life and Learning (ResLife) announced to international students at the beginning of the semester that only freshman international students and international students on financial aid will be allowed to remain on campus over winter break. Their decision promises to leave some students scrambling for a place to stay once the semester ends.
If that doesn't sound familiar, it should: Last November, ResLife first announced a $100 fee for international students who remained on campus over winter break. It was OK to announce the fee so late in the semester, administrators reasoned, because the International Center would be subsidizing it for international students on financial aid. They mistakenly reasoned this year, however, that any international student not on financial aid can afford either to fly home or to sublet an off-campus apartment.
Some full-paying international students have wealthy benefactors that fund their tuition but don't necessarily fund anything else. This leaves them to pay for their own personal expenses, such as housing and travel to and from the United States, on a limited budget that their financial aid award doesn't necessarily reflect. A 10,000-mile flight across the world could stretch that budget to the breaking point.
We commend ResLife for making its winter housing policies clear so early in the semester this year — the first email went out to international students on Sept. 2 — thus giving students more time to make alternative arrangements, if need be, and arrange flights home at a cheaper rate.
Even so, we don't support ResLife's decision to exclude upperclassmen international students and those who aren't on financial aid from winter housing. If the university is going to charge a fee to remain on campus over the break, then it should certainly be able to accommodate any international students who are willing to pay the fee. We empathize with ResLife's need to pay for heating and staffing on campus residences for an extra few weeks, but presumably the fee exists to do just that.
Some international students indicated to the Daily that they — or other international students they knew — had to make less-than-ideal off-campus arrangements over the break because of the new policy. International Center Director Jane Etish-Andrews told the Daily that she encourages international students "to let us know what they're thinking and we'll work with them on it."
We encourage those international students who are excluded from housing under the new policy — but would like to remain on campus — to speak up and request some sort of compromise. Surely the university can find a way to accommodate them.
