Craig Cohen: New UMass policy toward int'l students unfortunate

In 1996, Congress passed a law creating the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS. The system was created to prevent terrorists from entering the country via student visas. As part of the law, by August of last year, all schools and organizations that accept visitors with certain types of visas were required to create an online database tracking such students.

Penn's Office of International Programs explains that as a result of this system, the University is "required to compile and maintain report information about international students and exchange visitors, and to report such information periodically to the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services and to the Department of State."

The Department of Homeland Security explains that SEVIS is designed to strike a "proper balance between openness to international students and exchange visitors, and our nation's security interest in knowing who has come into our country and that they are complying with the terms of their entry." Despite fears that this law unfairly targets all international students, it is a perfectly rational step in order to ensure our security at home. However, as the University of Massachusetts has recently shown, there are terrible ways to enforce this well-intentioned law.

In response to a $240,000 budget cut to its International Program Office, UMass has informed its international students that in order to compensate for this cut, they must pay a $65-per-semester fee, part of which will be used to pay for SEVIS. The fee has sparked outrage on the campus, and 1,000 international graduate students have refused to pay it, claiming discrimination. The university has responded by threatening dismissal and a revocation of visas for any international students who do not pay the fee by the required deadline. UMass is flat-out wrong in taking these draconian steps.

CNN reports that UMass spokesman Patrick Callahan justified the fee by saying, "SEVIS is mandated. We don't have a choice." This is both inane and incorrect. While the system is mandatory, surely there is no one set way which the university must pay for it. What Mr. Callahan apparently does not understand is that he does have a choice. A far better option would be to spread this cost over all of the student body -- undergraduates and graduate students, domestic and international ones alike. UMass's The Daily Collegian estimated that the cost per capita would be $1.08 if spread over the entire student body.

If everyone from the university is affected by the budget cuts -- since presumably it's not just international students who use the IPO -- then shouldn't everyone pay for the cost? Furthermore, although SEVIS is a service which benefits domestic, not international, students, the cost of maintaining it is incurred by the university. Those who obtain an education at the university should be responsible for paying for its upkeep.

A system like SEVIS is a form of public good. For those unfamiliar with basic economics jargon, a public good is a good whose benefits are not depleted by an additional user and from which it is impossible to exclude anyone. National defense is often given as the prime example of a public good. The government cannot exclude me from the Army's protection for not paying taxes.

This is exactly what SEVIS is -- a public good which the university, in conjunction with the federal government, is providing to the student body at large. If another domestic student is admitted, the university does not have to pay more to maintain it, and the system is not depleted in any way. Yet in this case, these students do not even have to pay for the service. The desired benefit group pays nothing for SEVIS, while the very group targeted by this program is forced to pay for their own surveillance.

Using this line of logic, perhaps the CIA should request foreign countries to pay for the costs of their intelligence agents while abroad?

As if this were not bad enough, The Daily Collegian further noted that only 8 percent of this fee would be used to pay for SEVIS, with the rest being used to pay for the budget cut to the International Program Office. The office, according to their Web site, is responsible for study abroad programs for domestic students, scholarships for abroad programs and international housing initiatives, in addition to helping international students with their visa paperwork, admissions and advising. Apparently, international students must pay for budget cuts which they were not responsible for so that other students can use benefits which they themselves cannot take advantage of. Does this make any sense?

It is unfortunate that UMass is forced to deal with these budget cuts. However, such cuts affect not just international students, but the entire student body as a whole. Forcing international students to pay for their own surveillance and for the services of other students which they themselves cannot enjoy is both unfair and flat-out wrong.

Craig Cohen is a Wharton sophomore from Woodbury, N.Y. He Hate Me appears on Fridays.

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