Samuel Riggs ¦ Opinions Editor
Illustration by Alicia Mitchell
Since the launch and expansion of its Global Relations Strategy in recent years, Trinity has seen a massive influx of international students from all corners of the globe – countries as far flung as India, China, the States and Australia all have student representatives in this college, as well as the annual small army of Erasmus students from all over Europe. The strategy puts TCD at the forefront of internationalisation and student connectivity – as proudly boasted on the website, Trinity is on the “World Stage” in terms of students arriving from all over the world, wishing to take their first steps through Front Arch and into a wonderful third level experience here in Dublin.
However, there is a slightly darker story in terms of the Global Relations Strategy. Last year, the story of TCD scholars being relegated to Halls in Rathmines broke to an outstanding outcry in the college community – for students who have put in a mind-numbing amount of effort into these examinations, the news that they were being pushed all the way to the outlying suburbs of the city was not entirely welcome. Many argue that free housing is nothing to be sniffed at, especially during the year of what will no-doubt come to be called the Great Student Housing Crisis of 2013. However, the point of the argument is that this was not what was promised – scholars have traditionally been given accommodation on the grounds of Trinity, and to break with this is a massive oversight in the ethos of the university, which promotes ‘excellence in education’ above all else – another little gem from the TCD Global Relations home-page.
“The art of educating students is not cheap.”
Since then, and with the coming of the new academic year, stories have begun to bubble to the surface about international students being favoured over both scholars and Irish campus applicants in the accommodation process – students who have studied on the same course for 3 years previously are suddenly at odds and in competition for slots on campus, simply because one is an international student, who was granted campus accommodation, and the other is not – rooms that are under repair have not been announced to campus applicants, who may be otherwise struggling to find accommodation in the city for their final years of college.
For campus accommodation in Botany Bay, Front Square or Goldsmith Hall, you can expect to pay about €4,900 for the year, or about €540 a month. This is a relative bargain, when you consider how much you might pay to live in such an excellent location were you not a college student. However, given the suspected favouring of international students over Irish students in terms of accommodation, sometimes the whole exercise feels like a cash extraction process.
On top of this, there are the International Fees. It’s a well-known and acknowledged fact that international students pay incredibly high fees for their place in TCD – in a general sense, this caps at around the €16,000 mark, but Medicine and Dentistry students pay up to a whopping €31,085 for their total fees every year. The art of educating students is not cheap, particularly in these disciplines.
“Money makes the world go round.”
It’s tragic to say, but this process is not entirely unnecessary, nor is it designed to make life harder for us as students – if anything, it’s the opposite. Trinity isn’t exactly doing the best it’s ever done in a financial sense. There is a very real and very tangible danger of bankruptcy, and a high fees international programme is one of the ways in which the college is no doubt aiding itself in keeping afloat, bringing in students to fuel the research programmes, which in turn garner the college substantial grants and a wonderful worldwide reputation for excellence, which we must endeavour to maintain and improve. Similarly, the reason the Provost has breached the tentative subject of introducing steeper fees is not a case of cash-grabbing – it is so that the college can continue to educate us in the best way possible, providing us with the quality of education we have become used to, perhaps in a very unjustly privileged sense. However, the timing is not exactly excellent – it’s not an easy ride to be a student in Dublin, at least not as easy as previous years. And while it is in no way the responsibility of the college to provide housing for us, those who have worked for it and earned their place should be granted it, over those who are simply paying the college lots of money.
As well as this, It should be noted that this article is in no way a “get the bloody foreigners out!” piece, the kind you’d hear down the local snug or yelled out of taxis – without the Erasmus and international students, Trinity would become droll – instead of a rank-topping university, climbing places every year, it would become dull and stagnant. Our vibrant community, both of Irish and international students, keeps Trinity the bouncing hub of innovation and front-running research and ideas that it is. Money makes the world go round, and money is exactly what the Global Relations Strategy is designed to acquire, in order to keep our college the bastion of learning that it is.
