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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