LAHORE: The Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) came under fire on Tuesday after it announced a 41 percent increase in its semester fee.
Students and the general public took to social media to condemn the varsity’s decision of increasing the fee during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
The social media storm resulted in the university issuing a statement on its official Twitter account, in which it said the fees for the 2020 academic year were determined before the epidemic and that the hike “is entirely consistent with prior years and took into account extraordinary increases in inflation, energy costs and currency evaluation”.
https://twitter.com/LifeAtLUMS/status/1257587990597177344/photo/1
It claimed that the fee increase determined for 2020 was 13pc “which we will monitor in determining the next fee card”.
The statement explained that previously, a per semester blanket fee was being charged for students taking between 12 to 20 credit hours and that this fee is now calculated on a per credit hour basis “which will increase the semester fees for some and decrease it for others”.
Lums in its statement also maintained that “the important point is that the total fee to meet graduation requirements does not change as a result of the shift to a per credit hour basis.”
It said one of the reasons behind the shift to the new calculation model is “to discourage students from taking course overloads which negatively impacts their learning”.
Dr Nida Kirmani, Associate Professor of Sociology at Lums, tweeted that “Universities cannot make students whose families are already struggling pay for the financial losses they may be facing.”
Universities cannot make students whose families are already struggling pay for the financial losses they may be facing. Hoping we get a clear answer from the administration today about this & either there is some miscommunication or this decision is reversed. #LumsFeeHike
— Nida Kirmani (@NidaKirmani) May 5, 2020
“Right in the middle of a pandemic and an economic recession, [Lums] increased the tuition fee by over 40%,” wrote a Twitter user.
https://twitter.com/Witcheeha/status/1257294273319444480
Umair Javed, another associate professor at Lums, said: “The fact that a university can even consider a fee increase (of any magnitude) during these extremely uncertain times is absolutely ludicrous.”
https://twitter.com/umairjav/status/1257335698031611916
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