Cave Hill Campus registrar Kenneth Walters (left) speaking about enrolment numbers as senior assistant registrar for student affairs Rommel Carter looks on during yesterday’s news conference. (Picture by Lennox Devonish.)
About 1 700 fewer Barbadians will be studying at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) this year now that education is more expensive to students.
And that’s even with banks offering loans, the Government’s Student Revolving Loan Fund being open for business and the campus itself so far allowing 1 000 students with no access to loans to make monthly payments rather than a semester lump sum towards their tuition.
Campus registrar Kenneth Walters said yesterday that Cave Hill was attracting fewer students not only from Barbados, where Government has told students and their parents they have to dig deeper in their pockets to help it finance studies, but the Caribbean, where there were also tough economic times.
The problem itself held implications for the number of courses the institution could offer and initially the number of part-time staff the UWI could maintain – all issues being looked at now, he reported.
Total registration of students from Barbados dropped to 4 460 in 2014, compared to 6 165 in 2013, a 27 per cent decline, Walters reported.
There were only 477 graduate students registering in 2014, compared to 875 in 2013, a 45 per cent reduction.