No Increased Fees for Students Undertaking Fieldwork

In March 2008, SOAS management decided to implement a new fee structure for research students enrolling from September 2008. The most significant change was that the new structure no longer includes a provision for reduced fees for students on full-time fieldwork. While the overall cost of the degree varies for different students, fees for the fieldwork year increase by over 195\% for UK/EU students and nearly 500\% for international students.

Having taken this decision, SOAS failed to effectively communicate these changes to new research students, who continued their financing and budgeting plans on the basis of the fee structure communicated to them during the application process. The result was that students under-budgeted their fees for 2009/10.

SOASs inadequate communication around this issue was only discovered in March 2009, leaving many full-time research students with the near impossible task of raising the shortfall (1,955 for UK/EU students and 7,955 for international students) before September 2009 i.e. in four months, or face disastrous consequences: deferring their degrees, transferring to another university, or abandoning their degrees altogether. Part-time students face the same consequences.

This issue is critical for the entire SOAS research community because it goes to the heart of how research is conducted at SOAS and the value that SOAS management places on research students. SOAS is effectively discouraging students from undertaking fieldwork, yet SOAS prides itself on developing fieldwork expertise.

Graham Furniss, Pro-Director, has acknowledged SOAS managements failures in communicating the new fee structure, describing the communication as less than ideal. However, SOAS managements proposed solution is to reschedule the fees for Year 2, allowing students to pay in installments. Students have also been invited to apply to the hardship fund to cover shortfalls, which has no guarantees of having sufficient resources. Research students and others at SOAS believe this offer is inadequate and amounts to an attempt to shift the cost of SOASs failures in communication onto students.

Research students and others at SOAS call upon SOAS management to retain the reduced fee provision for students going on fieldwork in 2009/10 and ensure that fee schedules are properly communicated to students in the future. Students refuse to pay for SOAS management's failures in communication.