Lawsuit Alleges Columbia University Pressured Administrator to Favor Foreign Students
“International students, who frequently pay full tuition, can provide a key financial boost for colleges”
It looks like this was all about money. If it is true, of course.
The New York Post reports:
Columbia U pressured administrator to favor foreign students: lawsuit
A Columbia University administrator was canned because she wouldn’t “bend” the rules to get international students through the doors of the school’s Teachers College, she claims in a lawsuit.
Yocasta Brens, who served as the director of the Office of International Student Services for Columbia’s Teachers College, said fellow administrator Portia Williams asked her in Fall 2019 to process immigration paperwork for prospective students “without the necessary documentation,” according to court papers.
The students, from South Africa, lacked “evidence of funding and full-time engagement in a prescribed program, as required by federal regulations,” Brens said in her Manhattan federal court lawsuit against the school.
Months later, Teacher’s College Provost Stephanie J. Rowley allegedly accused Brens of being “inflexible” with the federal requirements. Afterward, Brens filed a complaint under the school’s whistleblower policy.
International students, who frequently pay full tuition, can provide a key financial boost for colleges, said David Bloomfield, an education law professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.
“International students are not only an economic engine for many higher ed institutions, but also, many believe, a human rights issue,” he said, noting they should be granted admission “within the law.”
Teachers College told Brens to certify international students as full-time, when they weren’t, extend immigration documents for those who didn’t qualify, and ignore a lack of proficiency in English, she charges in her lawsuit.
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Comments
I guess it’s all about the Benjamins, as some east African incestuous bigamist said.
This is not new, and it’s not rare. The big state university I worked for did the same thing.
The legislature provided money for a fixed number of in-state students, and the school could admit as many out-of-state students as they wanted. Foreign students are often the best, because they don’t generally get financial aid.