So whats your answer Mr. Guilden? Or is it more spin.....?What about the problems that affect Bermuda everyday? This is really 'here nor there'

"In other words, international students fees allow more locals to attend a tertiary level institution because it reduces the cost to them. Which equates to international student fees being a subsidy for local students. Please show me the difference."

Uh, no.

The international students pay their own way in full so they have no impact on local student enrollment.  If the Universities were forced to charge them the same fee as locals they'd just have to start refusing international admissions or raise fees for everyone and have locals subsidize internationals who didn't contribute tax dollars.

Hell the school fees is cheap, how bout G'ment paying for the AIR FARES!!!! All the travelling G'ment does the kids could fly on their miles!!!

Guilden, I agree completely.  The PLP had a real shot, but they got drunk on champagne and then handed the keys to the worst kleptocrats we have ever seen.

The UBP for all their failings at least had a back bench with some balls.

Tryangle - glad to hear you had a good experience with UWI and speak highly of it. I have little doubt that the school offers some very good programs however there are some things that one just cannot expect to study when dealing with university in such a tropical clime. Using an extreme, if one wants to study and be athletically involved in winter sports you won't be picking Jamaica. No matter how hard the Bob Sleigh Team tries to convince you.

I just think people shold have access to an equal set fund to be spent as they see fit. Whether it be at UWI or elsewhere.

As to your point about Bermuda College - I'm aware that these guys had some excellent opportunities presented to them and they completely dropped the ball. Actually they did much worse than that. I see UWI as just another lazy cop out presented when the whole world's imploding on them to garner some sort of feel-good PR using foreign consultants to do the job. Totally not thought through if the program entails something similar to the Excess Hurricane Fund the government just paid into. Not knocking UWI as this might work well for other Carribean Islands less well off than Bermuda - just my thoughts.

I have a number of family members and friends that have studied and received degrees from accredited universities in the West Indies - some of whome are some quite prominent figures in the community and would promptly inform you that the standard of education is quite high.

In a perfect world it'd be great for every Bermudian graduate to get a scholarship to the university of their choice however have insufficient data at hand (ie, the number of HS graduates from last year) to crunch the numbers.

But, as a first step I think it's great that more options are being made to our students to get subsidized education - be it the UK or the Caribbean. Not perfect, but may be beneficial to those who are more inclined to head further south for post-grad education.