Since 2006, a spectre has haunted SFU. No, it isn’t the spectre of international communism, it’s actually the opposite — creeping privatization, as exemplified by the Fraser International College (FIC).
FIC has steadily grown on the southeastern part of campus, located in the Discovery Research Park near to the University Industry Liaison Office, and Environmental Health and Safety, but it remains non-existent or invisible to most students. It is very out of the way, but can be reached by going along University Drive East or walking from South Campus Road. The goal of FIC is to prepare students, the vast majority of whom pay bloated international student fees, for completing a degree at SFU. However, unlike the SFU governance structure that includes faculty and students on various committees and decision-making bodies, FIC is accountable only to shareholders and the university administration.
I worry that international education is becoming an exclusive jet-setting credential, rather than a transformative experience open to all. I also worry that the profits accrued from FIC are being used to mask the effects of provincial funding cuts to public education on the quality of our education.
As a university transfer program for SFU’s growing international student population, FIC claims to enroll more than 1,300 students every semester from across the world. Enrollment has increased dramatically from 85 students in 2006, and SFU is trying to draw in students from countries other than China, which has so far dominated the demographics of FIC (not to mention recently signing an agreement with the board of governors). FIC thus potentially contributes to making a more diverse student experience on campus. As previously reported by The Peak, FIC renewed its contract with SFU in 2010 and will offer courses and programs until 2020. No one knows how much FIC will expand over the coming years.
A prep school allowing students to transfer directly to SFU after a year or two of study somewhat justifies FIC’s location on campus, since it allows students to become more familiar with aspects of SFU, such as how the library works and other good things. It also addresses the fact that there are numerous college transfer programs at smaller institutions in the lower mainland, but not ones that international students may seek out or know about. FIC offers Stage I (pre-university) transfer programs for $13,976 over two semesters, and offers Stage II (university-level) UTP’s in business administration, engineering science, computing science, and arts and social sciences, among other disciplines. On paper, FIC appears to be justified.
Unlike SFU however, Fraser International College is owned by a private, for-profit multinational corporation, based out of Australia. So far, FIC has arranged for courses to be taught by every faculty, and almost every department, with the exception of Sociology/Anthropology, which has questioned the presence of this public-private partnership. Most departments have bowed to pressure from the university administration to offer materials, consultation, and even instructors to FIC to boost enrollments and thus secure continued university funding.
Every semester at Burnaby, the section dedicated to FIC gets larger, as they offer more courses outside the democratic control of curriculum and appointment committees, and of direct accountability to departments, faculty, and students. While this is a P3 agreement, the logic of privatization and the profit-motive looms large, and FIC could be the tip of the iceberg in terms of privatization.
Students at Fraser International College, like all international students, pay exorbitant tuition fees for their education. While SFU’s student paid $163.80 per normal course unit this Spring, FIC students pay $546.34 (soon to be raised by $27 per unit), depending on their program, a figure that is even more than what international students normally pay. Because they do not choose the exact number of credit hours they enroll in, they pay a per-term athletics and recreation fee of $125, while an SFU student taking three courses pays about 60% of that.
International education is a worthwhile pursuit that should be encouraged by universities around the world, as SFU has done by bringing in over 13 per cent of its enrollment from abroad. However, prices like these ensure that this credential will only be available to the upper-middle classes who can afford such education and the cultural and social benefits it adds to their social mobility. It also makes computers and study spaces less available to students, the latter a major justification for spending $65 million on a new student union building.
Furthermore, while the university administration is not supposed to profit off of international students fees or rely on them for funding its operations, it is de facto heading in this direction by receiving rent equal to a third of tuition revenue at FIC, and, with, its 2011 agreement with the Chinese Scholarship Council, to send 20 top graduate students to SFU every year from elite Chinese universities. Ordinary students pay increased tuition fees and have high student loan interest rates, while international students themselves are milked for revenue.
The Simon Fraser Student Society, meanwhile, has said very little on what this development means for public education or student experiences on campus. If our goal is to create community, it makes no sense to give up space that could be used by students for what amounts to an export processing zone for educational commodification. This has not been an issue on campaign platforms. Nor has it been a major subject at SFSS all-candidates debates, where the main subject seems to be, how can we run our non-profit student society using for-profit methods, and still claim democratic legitimacy in doing so. This is partly because Fraser International College keeps itself hidden on the eastern part of campus near UniverCity, and keeps adding enrollment every year in such a way that we don’t notice.
But we have reached a turning point where quantitative accumulation has produced qualitative change: the good potential has been outweighed by the bad actuality. We have to take a stand in defending public education rather than allowing this wave of neoliberal privatization to continue indefinitely.
