NMC imposes new $200 fee on international students

Foreign students at Northern Marianas College will be charged a new fee starting this spring 2012, according to acting NMC president Leo Pangelinan.

Pangelinan, who is also the dean of Student Services, said the fees will be used for specific purposes such as for facilitating and processing foreign students’ documents like F-1 visas, hiring of more English tutors, and expansion and upgrade of the English laboratory.

International students currently pay a tuition of $190 per credit, not including flat fees imposed by the college on all enrollees. Resident students pay $95 per credit plus the mandated flat fee.

With the new fee, foreign students will be charged an additional $200 per semester.

Pangelinan said that NMC, in partnership with the U.S. Homeland Security through the student exchange visitor program, is now required to monitor, track, and report students who obtain F-1 visas.

“We facilitate the processing for them and there’s a lot of communications, tracking, and monitoring involved in this process. We have other issues [with international students] that we need to address in order to support their success here at the college. We want to hire more academic tutors and support the upgrade of our English language lab,” he said.

Foreign students are required a minimum of 12 credit per semester to be enrolled at the college. This is among the condition stipulated in their F-1 visa.

Pangelinan said that NMC may see an increase in the number of foreign students this new semester following information that 49 new students are now securing F-1 visas so they could enroll at NMC.

This is in addition to the foreign students who attended the college in the fall semester and are expected to continue this spring 2012. Pangelinan could not immediately say how many foreign students from the fall semester would return.

International students represent approximately 22 percent of the college’s population every semester.

College officials earlier said that they are not ready to implement any tuition and fee increases for students. They assured that other avenues to improve the financial state of the college would be explored first before recommending any changes in the current rates.

The college has two funding sources for its operation: through appropriation from the Legislature and from students’ tuition and fees.