Foreign Students Will Rally for Tuition Reform

By: Laura M. Reckford
Published: 03/19/10

Late Saturday night, a bus filled with students is scheduled to leave the Hyannis Transportation Center for a national rally Sunday, March 21 in Washington, D.C. advocating tuition reform for foreign-born students.

Sunday’s rally comes in the wake of an event that was scheduled last Thursday evening at the Hyannis Youth and Community Center on the same topic.

Deivid Ribeiro of West Yarmouth, 21, a Brazilian native who is a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, said yesterday afternoon that he and other students were scheduled to speak at the Hyannis event.

Mr. Ribeiro, who attended Cape Cod Community College in West Barnstable before transferring to UMass Dartmouth, said he and other students are concerned about government education policies that deny in-state tuitions and certain financial aid to students who are not American citizens, even if they have lived in the United States for years.

Kathleen Schatzberg, president of Cape Cod Community College, is a strong supporter of equal access to higher education for all, according to college spokesman Michael Gross. A number of students at the college were scheduled to attend the Hyannis and Washington rallies.

The Hyannis bus already is filled with 55 prospective riders. Other buses are scheduled to leave that same evening from other communities in Massachusetts.

After attending the national rally Sunday, Mr. Riberio said, students will get back on the Hyannis bus around 6:30 PM, arriving back in Hyannis about 2 or 3 AM Monday.