Here is My Penny…!

By Dara Ali

A strange and so called “New Change” AUI-S has recently asked its residential halls students who are from other parts of Iraq to pay on extra $400 for books and dormitory fees for the year. This decision has been hard for many students to swallow while others struggle with the reality that they might no longer be able to afford their AUI-S education.

Why do students need to pay this money?

Here are some possible answers.

The first one, as it is obvious for all of us, it might be useful for solving the financial problems that AUI-S is facing now. But can a very limited amount of money, from poor students, solve AUI-S’s financial problems? If so, why does AUI-S push poor students to pay more money when they are already paying their tuition fees? Don’t you think it brings distinct problems for those families that barely can afford to pay for their children’s education?

The second is that the AUI-S officials might have thought about new methods to push students to work to connect them to their natural environment of hard working. If it is, without a doubt, it might be constructive. But what about the students who had already been supposed to work to afford their tuition fees? Will it help them? Or make them suffer because they cannot work more despite the very high costs of living in Sulaimani? Can AUI-S find another way to help its students to work hard and become real students? I believe it can!

What do students need to do?

As a part of this matter, all students, who live in the dorms, should stand together and ask to stop such a request.

More to the point, this campaign will be a very good method to stop something which seems rare by all accounts. Also, I think this is exactly what needs to be done by students for now. Let’s all ask to stop it. It is the time! I unquestionably agree and support this campaign because I feel that the decision of asking money for dorms and books is unfair. For some students, of course, the $400 is only a small amount of money. For some, however, besides paying tuition fees, these additional fees may have devastating consequences.

* Dara Ali is an International Studies at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani