As an international exchange student at Columbia this fall, I had a fantastic opportunity to explore the vast array of culture in Chicago, from the Kingston Mines blues club to the Little Village neighborhood.
It was a once in a lifetime grab for a British bloke to turn 21 in America while studying in one of its most exciting cities. However, it was also costly to live in Chicago, and because of Columbia’s discriminatory employment policy for exchange students, I wasn’t allowed to work on campus.
Although tuition was covered by my home university in the UK, I was responsible for everything else, and I wasn’t quite prepared for the difference.
Food costs just about $100 every two weeks in America, nearly twice what I pay in the UK. Drinks are more expensive for nights out. Mandatory medical insurance was $700, and my housing in Chicago cost almost $400 a week to live in the dorms. Back home, I paid $210 for a single bedroom in a dorm in Manchester.
No one said college would be cheap. That’s why many students get a job.
On both J1 and F1 student visas, international students are not allowed to work off-campus in America. But they can hold on-campus jobs. As a F1 visa holder on an exchange, I counted on being able to do this like many international students at colleges and universities in America. But Columbia only allows international students enrolled full-time to work campus jobs and not students like me studying on an exchange.
“We only offer campus employment to degree-seeking students,” Clare Lake, Columbia’s director of international student and scholar services, told me. “Exchange students are not eligible for campus positions as you are only here for one or two semesters, and our general Columbia policy is that you have to be degree-seeking to apply for campus jobs.”
Academic internships are available to exchange students off-campus. But as Lake said, most are unpaid, which doesn’t help with the expense of studying in America.
I can’t think of a logical reason to deny exchange students on-campus employment. Columbia should consider lifting this restriction. I can see on Handshake, the online system Columbia uses to post on-campus jobs, the many opportunities students have to work on campus and just how many of the jobs with no applications go unfilled. If Columbia is going to invite students to come study and take their money for housing and fees, they should allow them the opportunity to work.
I wonder how much more of this remarkable state and this great country that I could have seen with a bit more cash in my pocket. I was fortunate in receiving some financial support from my family, but not everyone has that, and it still left me short against the costs that come with experiencing the heartbeat of Chicago.
For an institution that pursues and advertises equity and inclusion, this seems like an easy issue to address.
Elliot Royce is a senior broadcast journalism major from The University of Salford who spent the fall semester at Columbia College Chicago.
Copy edited by Manuel Nocera
