On Tuesday, May 30, 2017 an email was sent to the graduate students at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) from the School of Graduate Studies (SGS). A portion of it is quoted below:
“Commencing July 1, 2017 confirmation of enrolment letters will be subject to a $15 processing fee. Before submitting a request for confirmation letter, students must first pay a $15.00 processing fee, payable in person at the School of Graduate Studies, or by phone.â€
In response, I sent the following email:
Dear [SGS contact],
I felt compelled to respond to your most recent email re: Confirmation of Enrolment letters, since I feel that the decision to charge students for these documents is unreasonable, discriminatory, and amateur. I have outlined my concerns in more detail:
The charge is unreasonable. Students (both undergraduate and graduate) pay thousands of dollars in tuition to be enrolled at UNB. In fact, they will soon be paying even more to be enrolled, since a tuition hike has been included in the most recent UNB budget. Included in this tuition is presumably enough overhead to provide students with basic administrative services including, but not limited to: processing their registration and tuition payment and confirmation that their registration and tuition payment was processed. In day-to-day business interactions, this would be referred to as payment (i.e. tuition money) followed by a receipt of payment (i.e. confirmation of enrolment letter). It is unreasonable that, after paying thousands of dollars in tuition, the university finds it difficult to provide its students with confirmation that they paid these thousands of dollars.
The charge is discriminatory. Often, in order to pay these thousands of dollars in tuition, students who are less fortunate must take out bank or government loans or lines of credit so that they might benefit from the education that this institution provides. These loans and lines of credit require confirmation of enrolment documents on a yearly basis and sometimes (near the end of graduate degrees) each semester. To charge less fortunate students more than wealthy students (who do not have to endure the inconvenience of paperwork associated with student debt) is an obvious form of discrimination based on socioeconomic status that may negatively impact multiple minority groups.
The charge is amateur. At other Canadian institutions (e.g. Queen’s University, University of Guelph, etc.), confirmation of enrolment letters are given to students free of charge, in recognition of their necessity for the disbursement of student loans and lines of credit, as well as RESPs. To charge for such basic paperwork makes UNB seem unprofessional, incompetent, and petty – unwilling to provide students with a semblance of the service they might receive at another Canadian institution. This extra, unreasonable charge adds to the growing list of bloated administrative red tape that makes this university increasingly unattractive to high-caliber students.
A simple solution to this issue is to adopt a system similar to that used at Queen’s University, where students are able to access a “snapshot” of their current enrolment in their secure eServices account and print it off themselves (visit this link for reference). From this example it is clear that not every administrative snag requires the financial onus to be placed on the students. Instead, a cursory examination of the current system’s efficiency reveals a better way that both eases the administrative burden and serves students effectively. Since such a simple solution is obvious and has been successfully employed at other Canadian institutions, I am requesting an immediate response to my concerns from whichever party is most qualified.
Though charging $15 to confirm a student’s enrolment may seem minimal to administrators who make a livable (or beyond livable) salary, for those of us who struggle daily on less than minimum wage to create knowledge and dedicate ourselves to actively improving UNB’s reputation by attending conferences and publishing our work, it is a deeply disrespectful slap in the face (especially coupled with the recently approved tuition hike). I caution UNB’s administration not to forget that without graduate students, this institution’s extensive research program (and the associated “world-class” reputation of which UNB is so proud) would crumble.
I will be graduating from an MSc Biology at convocation this fall (having defended in early May) and I want to feel proud that my CV will include a degree from this institution. However, given the increasing lack of concern that the UNB administration has shown its graduate students during my four-year tenure, I am not convinced I will ever be able to feel anything but triumph at overcoming the obstacles UNB’s administration has placed in my way.
I sincerely appreciate the time you have taken to consider my concerns and look forward to your (or your supervisor’s) prompt response.
Regards,
Michelle Lavery
I have since waited a full week. The Chair of the Biology Department and the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) have responded with sympathy and concern, however I have yet to receive a response from any member of the UNB administration. This is despicable treatment of a chronically underappreciated group of students who actively contribute to and ensure the university’s success.
If you are a current graduate student, I highly suggest contacting the administration with your concerns and offering your support to the GSA as they work to remedy this issue. If you are no longer a graduate student (or never were one to begin with), feel free to lend your support by emailing the UNB administration a link to this open letter. If you’re not sure why graduate students matter or what we do, I recommend reading this, this, and this to get you started.
