article> Soon In Leuven
Leuven Students Against Tuition Fees
In the next few days events organized by Leuven Students Against Tuition Fees will be taking place to protest against the tuition fees increase at KU Leuven. Find out all about them!
by Marit Pepplinkhuizen
is a student association which was recently created in response to the increase of the tuition fees at KU Leuven over the past year. Whereas a regular programme charges €938.80, programmes with increased fees charge €1750, €3500, €4170, €6000, or up to €8500. In most of the cases only the students coming from outside the European Union pay the increased fees, but in some programmes every student does.
The association considers that it is inappropriate to do this, as this, according to one of the founders of the association “takes away the opportunity of studying at KU Leuven for a large amount of students, particularly an enormous quantity of international students that might not have the resources to fund expensive education.”
As a result, Leuven Students Against Tuition Fees is organising two events in protest against the increase of the tuition fees at KU Leuven which are coming up soon:
Karaoke night: sing against the tuition fees
Thursday 26th of September 2019, 8pm-11pm.
Pangaea, KU Leuven.
Free entrance, free singing, affordable beverages.
Open microphone concert against the tuition fees
Thursday 3rd of October 2019, 8pm-11pm.
Pangaea, KU Leuven.
Free entrance, free singing, affordable beverages.
The association wants to inform the new incoming students, but also everyone who is interested, about the policy of KU Leuven regarding the increase of tuition fees. They point out that each faculty could independently determine the tuition fees for the non-European students in 2014, but that most of the time the faculties did not provide motives for how they determined the amount of these fees. The association argues that “as no law forces them to do this, their budget is not conditioned on the nationality of their students, and there is no popular demand for this to happen, we can only conjecture that they are either trying to diminish the quantity of international students, or that they are drastically changing their economical model, regarding the international students as an income source. Until very recently everyone was charged the same low fee, without issues. We believe that we should stick to that equitable model, and revert these unnecessary changes that are creating only new problems. Each faculty has the power to do it, and we are urging them to do so.”
You can sign a petition if you want to support the movement, and you can join the events to learn more about the increase of tuition fees. You can also find more detailed information on this issue in an article posted by Studenten XYZ: “Dossier about the issue of the tuition fees in KU Leuven, by the Leuven Students Against Tuition Fees”.
