On Campus

The Charter right to use a credit card

Kwantlen students no longer able to pay tuition with a credit card, student association prepares for court

Students at Kwantlen Polytechnic University will no longer be permitted to pay tuition using their credit card. For the university, it is simply a cost saving administrative change, with a portion of the savings in user fees ($250,000) being redirected towards scholarships and bursaries. For the Kwantlen Student Association (KSA) it is a matter of human rights.

International students will still be allowed to use their credit cards because they may not have access to banking options that allow tuition to be paid online, as domestics students do. That’s discrimination says Bradley Head KSA director of  academic affairs. A lawyer who Head consulted with told him that restricting credit card use by place of origin violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the B.C. Human Rights Act. If a solution cannot be negotiated with the university the KSA plans to take the issue to court as “a last resort.”

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