Editorial | A good investment

In order to help out international professional students affected by the economic crisis, the Trustees of the University recently passed a resolution promising to help these students procure loans from a U.S. lender to continue their educations at Penn.

This offering is a prudent one. International students recently were left without a lender after Citibank discontinued its international-student loan program, and many depend upon the loans to fund their educations. The financial crisis, as we all know, is likely to last well past the next academic year, and one of the best steps for students is to complete their degrees in a timely fashion instead of stopping and starting. The partnership, in which Penn bears risks of losses above 10 percent, is also a good-faith effort by the University in the caliber of its students.

Currently, however, the proposed loan agreement would only cover to students in Wharton - the old program similarly worked primarily with Wharton Executive MBA and Lauder program students - partly because each individual school negotiates partnerships with lenders independently. Still, programs in other schools both attract large numbers of international students and typically require significant loans to fund the education. While students in other schools have taken advantage of the program in the past, in light of the economic situation, the University should more actively promote individual schools to arrange partnerships so that international students can easily find the necessary loans to complete their Penn education within the prescribed limits.

Penn is an international-friendly school with international ambitions, and it's only right that all international students can procure loans.

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