PRESS RELEASE: Lebanese Bloggers Convention and the AUB Tuition Increase Protest

Most of you might have heard about the tuition increase protest that will be occurring in AUB on Wednesday.

Here's a small briefing:

The AUB Administration has announced last week that it will be abandoning the current 12-credit tuition system (whereby students pay only for 12 credits, and can get up to 17 credits for free) to a 15-credit tuition system without reducing the credit price. This will lead to a 25% increase for new enrolling students (around $3000 to $4000 per year).

Anyway, the student governance at AUB in coordination with various clubs and societies are protesting starting Wednesday and calling for students to boycott their classes. A huge number of students (around 2000) will be blocking AUB's main entrances, buildings and pathways for some time.

It is still not clear how long this protest will last, but I was informed that they are planning to stay longer than 5:00 PM. During this time, security at AUB will be greatly heightened and I am not sure if the event can still be hosted during that day.

It also is not to our advantage that the main host, Outlook, the official student newspaper at AUB, are being uncooperative towards this event, and focusing most of their attention on the protest.

This event has been officially cancelled by the office of Student Affairs at AUB (read more). I will be working with the Dean's office to try and postpone it to a later date.