UBC is building a “$127 million [school], but Canadian students need not apply. The college [UBC Vantage] will house only high-paying international students, most of them from China”(Rankin). Personally I know quite a few friends who are on the enormous “5,200” person wait list. While they are kept waiting, UBC caters to the “wealthy overseas Asian students”(Rankin) which is extremely unfair and will therefore. We have been notified through the upcoming year housing and tuition fees will increase. 200 students who are intended to attend Vantage are already living in first year accommodations. This raises the question, will the number of students admitted per faculty increase from a result of this? Or, are we to assume that this building resembles that UBC is flooding the already small number of students that are admitted first year with international students. In my personal opinion this creates more of a segregated culture of people who do their own thing and support their own beliefs. With my understanding, most locals who attend UBC such as myself, are looking to create a unionized school who support and interact with each other. A larger language barrier will be created though this school which enforces this feeling of “separation” from fellow students. I do realize that UBC may be in a financial dilemma. UBC is spending $127 million on this project and an international student who attends vantage is paying $50,000 (1000*$50,000)) which will create a revenue of $50,000,000 yearly. Financially, this may be a great idea which could potentially generate large sums of revenue which could or could not be recycled back to the non-international student. Through my eyes its really matters where the revenue generated from this project is put.
Sources
“UBC’s Vantage College: Canadians Need Not Apply – British Columbia – CBC News.”CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 7 Nov. 2014. Web. 9 Nov. 2014. <http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ubc-s-vantage-college-canadians-need-not-apply-1.2826142>.