I was watching the eleven o’clock news and I was outraged by a story about a university’s medical school selling 10 seats to international students of Saudi Arabia for 75,000 a seat. The people who were speaking about the issue were fellow medical students and a NB government official. They believe that it is completely absurd for the school to do such a thing. I quote, “I think that they should be taking the time to educate Canadians because we have a shortage of physicians.” Once I heard the comment it made it fairly clear that the issue was not that they sold seats but more to the fact that it was to international students of Saudi Arabia.
I am a university student and I know many international students. I know for a fact that they pay a higher tuition anyway and yet people are not complaining about that. I feel personally that there is an underlying issue to this story. It costs the average person thousands of dollars to attend a medical school of any kind and would cost one more if they decided to study in another country; nevertheless, people are stating that selling seats for medical school is a problem.
Our school is known to be one of the best universities east of Montreal which makes the tuition cost a reflection of its reputation. These people complain that this action is eliminating opportunities for Canadians but yet numerous Canadians with an easier chance of attending the school do not finish their first year. This is not due to the academic level but to over drinking, lack of motivation and procrastination. Whereas most international students complete their programs and a fair few stay to live in Canada.
I’m not saying that in all cases international students achieve higher than others but the reality of the cost is more evident. There’s more encouragement to succeed because some people cannot normally afford to attend school at such a cost. The people gave the impression of prejudice and fear of the unfamiliar. It seems that the real problem is not the seats that were sold but who the seats were sold to. —JP
This article appears in Mar 31 – Apr 6, 2011.
OP people are not educated on the subject. Anything that appears to disenfranchise them they refuse to delve deeper and actually see what’s happening, where exactly these seats are coming from etc etc. They’re paying 75,000 a seat why not let them have it.
how else do you expect dal. to make up fr the shortfall of provincial cash this year. and hey, at least they don’t have to take out loans to attend. if they got that kind of cash to attend, think of the cash they have to party down on week ends with you guys. get in good with these people, grease the wheel, so to spak, and there might even be better stuff involved later, hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
With the cost of tuition going up to astronomical levels in the UK i can bet a hefty wedge on more British Students in canada.
I’m not sure I understand this whole “selling seats” thing.
I’m not sure what the average cost is for a student, compared to that of someone buying a seat, but if it is a big price difference, I don’t know if I agree with that. Not because it is an International student, but because there is such a big price increase.
Like I said though, I don’t think I understand this situation.
It’s 75,000 per yr. for the Saudi students, which is A LOT more than “regular” students. I was reading the comments on another website and I don’t know when it started being “their people” and “our people”. I don’t know, y’all Canadians work this shit out.
Lolzzz
Dalhousie negotiated an agreement with Saudi Arabia to “add” 10 seats to the medical school at a cost of $75,000 each.
Dalhousie is short of cash and the Saudis (who have lots of cash) are short of medical school seats.
I’m not bothered by the fee differential. The Saudis can afford it.
What bothers me is that there is a shortage of doctors in rural areas all over this country and there has been for decades and various provincial and federal governments refuse to do anything about it.
I understand that the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons across the country have a lot of control over how many doctors are produced from our medical schools. They don’t want there to be a glut. They control the supply so that practicing doctors will always be in demand.
But medical school tuition is heavily subsidized by taxpayers. Therefore the taxpayers should have some say.
I have an idea. By all means sell seats to foreign medical students whose governments are awash in cash, but set the price high enough so that we can afford to educate a few more Canadian doctors as well.
most oil rich countries actually pay for their students to travel to other countries and learn their trades at foreign universities. A family friend from sweden even was offered a very large scholarship to come to canada and learn here. i also know two people from japan who were given the same thing. Many countries are very progressive in giving students they deem to represent them and further their own country’s future by training here to heart. Not saying that buying seats is right or wrong, but essentially anyone who ponies up money to go to university is paying for their own seat are they not?
don’t know much about it, but if the case is that they ADDED ten more seats to the program and are charging more for them, but all means, that makes sensible economics. The increase in prices for the Saudi students will easily cover increased cost of offering it, while still accepting the same number of Canadian students. Often, programs are enriched my a more diverse population anyway.
I would say that the lack or rural doctors is a whole other issue. If they’re adding seats … then why not do it. Also, med student fees are often subsidized, that is correct but of the 75,000 Saudis pay apprx 55,000 will go to funding the school. That $ funnels back into the training of your “rural doctors”.
The school isn’t stupid. It’s a bunch of intellectuals making decisions about stuff that directly affects them. Albeit at times motivated by profit, but I would like to believe that they, if anyone can make an informed decision and I have no problem with them adding seats for Saudis.
“but set the price high enough so that we can afford to educate a few more Canadian doctors as well.”
interesting proposal, though I highly doubt that is where the extra money is funneled.
http://www.thephileasclub.com/blog/wp-cont…
I don’t think that’s the intent however it does go back, in some way. Even if it’s to grease the pockets of prof. I’m ok with it. Ever had to deal with a bitch prof? A little lubricant on the poche makes people smile.
It’s money … what’s the problem. The principle? Since when have we had principles. Lol, big joke.
That’s quite cheap for Canadian citizenship, because they all don’t return to their own countries like they should.
When I was at Acadia I had tons of international student friends. I met a lot of them by working on campus because they weren’t allowed to work off campus as per their visa regulation. These were people who were paying more for tuition, however, they also weren’t being sponsored by the government like canadian students are. It costs a lot more to educate our sorry asses than we realize which is why I always get a kick out of students bitching about tuition rates. If you had to pay what it REALLY costs you’d likely not be able to afford to go there.
Anyway, most of my international student friends were from wealthy families. WUSK sponsors a student from a developing country every year at some universities, but for the most part, the international students who come here are loaded. I mean, one of my friends’ dad was an international ambassador.
It’s the same when I went to SMU, except it’s the rich Chinese that come here. Some Japanese or Korean, but mostly Chinese. These are people who come to class wearing gucci, wear D&G sunglasses (to class, lol), have winter jackets that cost over 1K (and talk about it like it’s nothing — one even told her friend she could have an $800 jacket because she didn’t like the colour anymore), drive expensive sports cars and have the money to fly back and forth on a whim to China whenever they feel like it.
Trust me, 75k is nothing for these students. And if they’re as qualified as anyone around here — why not let them in? MUN only admits 5 people per year into their medical program that’s not from NL. In 2004, I knew two — one was my best friend at the time (she’s from NS and curiously didn’t get accepted at DAL) and another was one of my International friends from Ghana. The friend from Ghana stayed in Canada as a practicing OBGYN.
it’s tough watching the frosh roll up in an RX7 every day in their designer clothes and then yammering on during classes disrupting everyone else. You obviously don’t need the money… why fucking bother on an education?
I was considered lucky to have and be able to afford to drive an 8 yr old dodge shadow at the time… which had a host of issues which required a LOT of maintenance and diligence to even keep running.
12 year old volvo over here! Until the unfortunate accident 🙁 Then it died.
There was this douche canoe back at acadia in 2000/2001 with a red jeep who thought he was the shit because he got a prime parking spot on campus right beside sem and denton while the rest of us had to haul our asses up to the lot up by tower and had an SUV. I wanted to key his stupid red paint.
Probably sebastard and he probably lived in Barrax. Them people be weird and shit.
Not sure about the cost of education in Saudi Arabia, but I had an American friend who I went to Mt. A with who told me that even though he paid twice as much tuition as me, he was still spending less than it would cost to go to a not-so-fantastic state school. My thinking is, a lot of students are getting a sweet deal by coming to Canada for their education. I don’t see anything wrong with charging a higher amount for those seats.
Now, unfortunately, I’m not sure how I feel about depriving Canadians of those seats. I have one friend who went to university on a full academic scholarship for her undergrad, and somehow ended up working in fast food for a year until she could get into med school (which she just graduated from). Another friend got accepted in Ireland but not here, and the steps you have to go through to practice medicine here when you learned it in another country are ridiculous, to the point where she figured she wouldn’t be able to practice here because it would cost too much. So I think that if we’re going to get in the business of educating another country’s students, we’d better make sure they’re going to stay here after or else we will have even more of a shortage of doctors.
I only know of one red jeep at that time… guy in my section.
might have been the same one, though we were in chase…
Well, I SUPPOSE he’s not THAT much of a douche if he lived in Chase. Especially old Chase. Lease douchy of all the residences (except for that one RA who liked to have buttsecks in the shower and then got fired). I only say that, though, because I almost lived there. Then decided to save the 5k and suffer it out at home.