One student was nearly overcharged an additional £5,900 following an admin mistake by the University.
The international student, who we are calling Addison, was shocked to find her tuition fee was hiked from £26,600 to £32,500 after switching courses despite the University’s longstanding policy of charging overseas undergraduates fixed fees throughout their time at UCL.
As she was studying at UCL on a scholarship, Addison could not afford to re-enrol on these increased fees and was forced to consider abandoning her studies in the UK and returning to her home country had the error not been reversed.
She said it took the Student Fees office 11 days to respond to an initial query explaining her situation in detail, only to receive a two-line response from the administrators confirming the erroneous fee hike.
She added throughout the long chain of e-mails: “They [Student Fees] were genuinely trying so hard to make me pay extra”.
The international student alleged the Student Fees and Student Immigration Advice offices kept pushing the matter to each other without resolving or explaining the problem. “Sometimes they didn’t know who was dealing with it”, she said.
She went on to describe the correspondence from the University as “rude” and “dismissive”.
As she never paid the extra £5,900, Addison was unable to re-enrol while her visa status hung on the balance.
She said: “Once they started arguing with me I felt terrible… For that month of Uni I really struggled.”
As term began with the issue still unresolved, Addison recounted researching universities in her home country during lectures – lectures she could not even enter on her own as her student ID card had been deactivated.
“I felt really powerless,” she said. “I felt like I couldn’t do anything about this… I didn’t see much hope in it… I was like there is no way these people [will] listen to me.”
She said the matter was only resolved after her department got involved and organised a meeting with the fees office.
Addison praised the admin staff at her department as “really nice and supportive” but said that she never received an apology from the University for the distress caused.
She added the fiasco exposed her to “how badly admin is done” at UCL.
While the fee increase should not have happened in the first place, she agreed that the exceptionally slow pace in which the bureaucracy dealt with it, and its rudeness, was the most upsetting.
A UCL spokesperson said: “We apologise for sending the student the incorrect fees request and for any inconvenience caused.
“This was an automated email sent out before her record was updated to confirm she had changed courses. Within days of her raising this with us, the fees were updated with the correct amount.”
Every year international tuition fees continue to rise and universities across the UK, including UCL, are increasingly reliant on international students for financial backing.
Yet, accusations of administrative inefficiency and lack of understanding towards these students persist.
Addison said: “The people at the top of the institution don’t really see us students, as people, and they just think they can get their way.”
This article appeared in CG89
