The students are demanding the decision to dollarize tuition fees be revised. (Credit: M. Youssef)
BEIRUT — Hundreds of students at the Lebanese American University protested on the institution’s Beirut campus on Monday against the dollarization of tuition fees starting fall 2022. The administration announced the upcoming change in its payment policy via an email last week.
Here’s what we know:
• M. Youssef, an undergraduate student, told L’Orient Today that some students are boycotting classes and refusing to study until the administration listens to their demands.
• Mohammad Ghadieh, a first-year student at LAU said “students demanded the university to keep tuition payments in the Lebanese currency … students also asked for journalists to enter campus [and cover the protest] but the university didn’t allow it.”
• While the LAU “student council did not organize the protest,” according to one of its members, Teya Abou Zour, the body did attend the demonstration “to stand with the students.”
• In the email sent last week, the president of the university, Michel Elias Mawad, wrote that “to sustain LAU, and continue with our excellent academic standards while addressing LAU’s affordability, LAU has decided 1) to adopt a fresh dollar budget effective fall 2022 to financially sustain the full value of education. 2) To increase the Financial Aid budget to a record of $100 million or more as needed, to support the great majority of students.”
*Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly quoted first-year student as being named Mohammad Attieh, when his actual surname is Ghadieh. The article has been updated to reflect this information.