Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsri!utegc!utai!tjhorton From: tjhorton@utai.UUCP Newsgroups: ont.general Subject: Re: Unfairness with Foreign Students Message-ID: <2899@utai.UUCP> Date: Fri, 2-Jan-87 06:10:27 EST Article-I.D.: utai.2899 Posted: Fri Jan 2 06:10:27 1987 Date-Received: Fri, 2-Jan-87 06:39:49 EST References: <8056@watdaisy.UUCP> <4129@watmath.UUCP> Distribution: ont Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto Lines: 39 > A typical foreign student will easily spend five or ten thousand > dollars of his own country's money a year while staying in Canada. > After four years he will leave the country with nothing but one > small piece of paper. > > Now, if I went to the government and told them I had a business > that exported paper at $30,000 a piece, with most of that money > being spent in small local businesses, I'm sure the government > would do all it could in grants and low cost loans to get this > business started. > > So, why can't they look at foreign students the same way? > Why not drop the fees entirely and even pay a small allowance > as an incentive to bring foreign money into Canada? ... > > So what am I missing? 1. Most of a student's expenses (outside tuition and books) are food and rent. The government can tax a small business, but it doesn't generally tax either of these 2 items. And the money isn't exactly trapped in Canada. 2. Cost of educating university student, per year: $5500 Cdn Student's expenses per year in Canada: $8000 ? Goverment collects back: $ ? ($200?) And there's other direct/indirect costs on the social systems. Let's be realistic. Educating foreign students ain't blatantly "profitable". 3. Graduate foreign students are usually supported in full ($9000 - $12000) by their department if they don't have scholarship support (at least in the technical disciplines). That's quite a sum of money. Per year per student. A gift is a gift. Maybe it's not a good enough gift, but it's a gift. Like the education I'm getting. Timothy J Horton