St Lucia, QUEENSLAND—A Bachelor Degree that will charge students based on their racial background at the University of Queensland (UQ) has sparked outrage online with some students calling it discriminatory. The Bokchoy's Education Correspondent, Boris Shortbread reports.
The Bachelor of Law/Medicine Dual-degree Program, to be offered by The University of Queensland (UQ) starting in Semester 1, 2017, is the first course of its kind aimed to attract the most elite and gifted students.
The Dual-Degree Program has made national headlines and also trended on social media platform Facebook—but for all the wrong reasons.
A leak of the course profile revealed that UQ planned to charge applicants different amounts for tuition based on their racial background—with Asian Students having to pay up to four times that of a Caucasian Student—sparking outrage among the student body.
A UQ representative has defended the claims, saying: "Students coming from Asia are 100-percent more likely to have a positive bank balance and rich parents than Caucasians—so it's only fair that we charge based on the proportion of money they have comparative to local students."
"Each Bachelor of Law/Medicine Dual-Degree will only cost you the proportion of money that you have comparative to the average Caucasian (so, if you identify as Asian, the course will cost you up to four or even ten times as much)," UQ has clarified on their website.
With Asians making up more than 40-percent of the UQ student body—and growing each semester—there have already been signs of protest on Facebook in popular student group UQ Stalkerspace and Brisbane's #1
"Ok, halp me understand this one—if I go spending all my money on the beer like my white crassmate and live off the Centrelink, then I can do degree for free? Damn, I been doing it wong all this time," said Jim Chang, third-year Engineering/Accounting/Pharmacy student.
The Bokchoy has contacted the UQ Vice-Chancellor's office for comment.
BUSINESS SCHOOL: University of Queensland to offer Bachelor Degree that charges based on Racial Background
Gary Lo
Apr 5, 2016