University of Sydney offers financial relief for Chinese students
The University of Sydney will offer financial relief to Chinese students stranded in China by the coronavirus travel ban.
The University of Sydney has joined other institutions in offering financial relief to Chinese students stranded in their home country by the coronavirus travel ban.
It has told its Chinese students that it will offer tuition fee rebates as well as support from a hardship fund for students who are not able to arrive on campus in time to study face-to-face.
Students stranded in China who study fully online this semester will be able to get a fee rebate of up to $4000.
But the university has not been able to make all courses available online, which means some students will have to defer until next semester, or even until next year.
Those students deferring until second semester this year will be able to get a fee rebate of up to $2000. For those forced to defer to next year, the fee rebate will be up to $3000.
The University of Sydney had about 14,000 students stranded in China by the travel ban, more than any other Australian university. While 2000-3000 may have managed to travel here via third countries, most are unlikely to make it to campus before the March 30 date which the university has set as the last possible day for students stuck in China to begin face-to-face classes.
The rebate of up to $4000 for students studying online this semester is de facto recognition by the university that its high international student fee level of about $40,000 a year is not viable for classes delivered online, which Chinese students regard as lower-quality.
Other universities have already offered financial relief to Chinese students caught by the travel ban. The University of Melbourne has offered up to $7500 to cover expenses, including flight changes, accommodation costs for students who spend their 14-day quarantine period in a third country before coming to Australia, and technology costs for online learning.
Other institutions to offer financial assistance include the Australian National University, the University of Adelaide and Western Sydney University.
Minister canes unis over effect of early offers
As year 12 students approach their final exams, one education minister is worried that early university offers have encouraged them to slack off.
Uni debacle was always going to get ugly
Our two oldest universities are both loudly left-wing campuses – they have activist staff and student groups where the party-line is settler-colonist theory – in which Israel as is has no right to exist.