Moving to a completely different side of the world, leaving parents, friends, family members, and hometown can never be an easy decision. It’s the hope of a bright future filled with opportunities that outweighs these challenges. Thousands of International students come to Canada with a dream build a promising future, and yet thousands could not even dream about studying in Canada because of high tuitions.
My name is Akashdeep Singh and I am a third year student of BBA Accounting at Sheridan college. The topic of high tuitions has always been in highlights and yet very small efforts are made to address this. These high tuitions has forced international students to either sell their parent’s assets or take massive loans to afford this education. The issue of high tuitions for one category of students is both ethically and morally wrong and yet we as a society has turned blind eye to it. Like many international students, I struggled to finance my education. I used the life savings of my family to move to Canada and just to pay the first year tuition fee. With no means to how I will finance my second year and no support from my family, I was on my own to deal with this challenge. This situation forced me to work both off campus and on campus jobs to to save enough money for my upcoming terms. I was blessed to have my immediate family here in Canada which helped me to cover my living expenses and save all my income for my tuition.
However not everyone is fortunate enough to have family here, then they are left alone to cover their living as well as tuition costs all by themselves. When domestic students attend and enjoy various on campus events, networking events, and fun activities with their friends, international students are seen working on their shifts to meet their ends meet. Imagine the gap that this policy of high tuitions has created that one category is forced to work to pay to the college to get the same education, in the same classroom as the other category which pays three times less tuition that them. International students are at a high risk of stress and depression and the top reason is high tuitions. I missed so many networking events, leadership conferences which all my friends attended because i could not afford to miss my shift to attend that event. This resulted in so many kissed opportunities to learn and meet new people. The above are some of the very few issues that international students face, but are very common.