Exchange Rates
I am an international student, and my family is in China. As a result, exchange rate changes between US dollar and Chinese Yuan can affect my family a lot financially. How much financial aid I receive, or whether I can receive financial aid or not depends on the exchange rate at the time when I submit my financial aid application. However, shifts in exchange rate often occur throughout the year afterwards. In the past year, USD has been going strong, which means my living expenses have gone up (if paid by my parents), and my tuition has become more expensive.
Even though I am not on financial aid and my family can afford my costs in college, I worked as a math grader for a semester five hours per week, because it felt like a good way to contribute to my family financially if I could earn the USD’s that I will be spending in personal expenses. Friends and family back home would marvel at how easily I can earn 85 Yuan (around 13 USD) per hour just by grading student homework, and for me it’s a reminder of how the most part of my tuition is not so easily earned by my parents back home in China.
My personal experience as an international student constantly reminds me of the significance of the income that I earn with my student jobs, and of the fact that for many international students around me whose families are less well-off, their own income is the sole resource for their personal expenses spent in every occasion, on or off campus in the U.S. Given the significance of the income that students, especially international students, earn in their limited working hours while studying full time, I find it unreasonable, that they have to take out a substantial portion of their income to meet the Student Income Contribution.
Even though I am not on financial aid and my family can afford my costs in college, I worked as a math grader for a semester five hours per week, because it felt like a good way to contribute to my family financially if I could earn the USD’s that I will be spending in personal expenses. Friends and family back home would marvel at how easily I can earn 85 Yuan (around 13 USD) per hour just by grading student homework, and for me it’s a reminder of how the most part of my tuition is not so easily earned by my parents back home in China.
My personal experience as an international student constantly reminds me of the significance of the income that I earn with my student jobs, and of the fact that for many international students around me whose families are less well-off, their own income is the sole resource for their personal expenses spent in every occasion, on or off campus in the U.S. Given the significance of the income that students, especially international students, earn in their limited working hours while studying full time, I find it unreasonable, that they have to take out a substantial portion of their income to meet the Student Income Contribution.
