Rhodes: Education VS Exploitation?

We all go to university to get a degree and with the exception of the limited number of students on scholarships; we pay through the roof to be here. Tuition costs in the region of R21 400 and R27 600 depending on your degree. Residence will cost somewhere in the same region. Thus before one has even set foot in a lecture, parents/guardians/we have already spent somewhere in the region of R50 000 and that’s before we even take things such as stationary or textbooks into account. This is the price of education – or is it?

Rhodes may not differ drastically from other universities in terms of fees but in personal experience I can say that various departments and societies at Rhodes will do their most to make a buck off of you. At the University of Cape Town students pay their fees for residence and their rooms belong to them for the duration of the year. They can come and go as they please with no need to pack up, no need to worry about getting in and out of residence before certain dates. Rhodes however is not like this. At Rhodes it seems the university will take every opportunity whatsoever to make some money. This basically means you have to pack up your room almost every vacation so that your residence may be used as accommodation for people attending conferences such as Highway Africa. If one wished to remain in one’s room during such a vacation, one would still be required to pack up their belongings and they would then be forced to pay an exuberant fee per night. It is my understanding that all the money made goes back to the university and its students. However I fail to see this. I currently live in a residence located on the hill and as such it is quite a bit away from any computer labs on campus. At the beginning of the year residences were told by the university that residences would be receiving their own printers, these would be distributed starting with female residences and then based on how far away one’s residence is from campus. Strange thing though, my residence still has no printer and residences right next to or across from computer labs do.

While we are on the printing issue let me just say that as a journalism student it is a big mission to have to finish an assignment; go down campus to print; and come back up to submit when the Journalism Department is right across the road. It wastes a good thirty minutes of valuable time that we as students can’t afford to lose. And while I’m talking about the Africa Media Matrix the Journalism Department is yet another department who makes the most of fees paid by students. The department accepts roughly 270 students into first year, and then accepts only 130 or so into second year because competition is fierce and apparently they do not have the resources to accommodate more students. Ironic then that in 2008 they added electronic ticker tape to the outside of the AMM which probably cost hundreds of thousands to do. Also ironic then that there are 4 huge flat-screen televisions embedded in the wall in the foyer. For a department that has limited resources they have rather curious spending habits.

Moving away from the university and the academic departments, even your fellow students will try to exploit your wallet. I present to you: Societies Evening; mega money drain madness. A hundred different societies will “convince” (and by convince I mean pester/harass/persuade) you that you need to sign up and join for a small fee, usually in the region of R100 – R150. What they fail to tell you is that after signing your money away, you are not likely to participate, you are not likely to attend functions, and if you wish to cancel your membership you will only receive a certain portion of your money back.

So if I have some advice for you it is this: Buyer Beware. The degree trade is a cut-throat industry and one will need their wits to come out with wallet still in hand.

(The picture is a little something i came up with by using Zapiro's Zuma comic as inspiration and borrowing Zapiro's art)