Foreign students are held hostage by brokerage firms

In the last ten years, private offices and companies and “brokers” have acted as mediators between Lebanese students and universities abroad who intend to continue their studies there. The “intermediary company” has become a mandatory path for students in most universities in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine in particular, while there is no similar formula for studying in Western European countries. Thus, the relationship of the student and his family with the university is restricted through the company that follows the “guest” academically from the moment he submits an application for admission to the university, which informs him of the approval of his application and accompanies you on your trip to the host country. Parents pay the university tuition through the account of the office or company that provides all the documents that the student needs during their studies, and is usually based on the university campus.

Parent sources confirm that companies charge students, according to oral or written agreement in the language of the country in which they will study, fees for one year that range between $ 1500 and $ 2500. However, with the deterioration of the economic conditions of the families, the suffering of the families surfaced with these companies. A medical student at one of these universities describes himself and his fellow students as “victims of companies that steal our money, given the exploitation to which we are exposed, especially in the first year, and it can continue for years. later, charging commissions in exchange for obtaining documents or any service during the study period, and sometimes they work. Blackmail us by threatening to lose our academic seats or retain the degree.
And students say that some companies hire a student in the year of specialization, “placing” him among the students as a monitor to ensure that they are not penetrated by another company, and he is interested in making sure that the student’s needs in terms of documents or renting a home under the direct sponsorship of the company in exchange for an economic fee for each service. According to some parents, “these growers work to promote among students that whoever wants to be successful in a particular subject must pay the subject teacher.”
All this happens “for a simple reason, which is that we do not know the details and the labyrinths,” says one of the mothers. He explains that students and their families in general do not know the language, and those who do not have relatives or friends in the study countries turn to these companies that “discover tricks and corridors that differ from one person to another on the basis that they can’t get out of hand.
The general counsel of the Federation of Universities of the Russian Federation and the official of one of the companies, Bashir Samaha, confirmed to “Al-Akhbar” that the company or institution “charges a fee for its services and clearly” for traveling to the university with academic follow-up. “However, in Russia there are companies that prevent students from paying university fees directly to the university, and this is what we have been fighting for for a long time. College tuition can be $ 1,000 a year and the company is working to raise it to $ 3,000 under the threat of depriving students of their papers and documents. For this reason, he asks parents to “know the details of each step they take and to agree with the institution before signing any written document.”

The profits that some companies charge up to 40% of the value of the fee!

The Lebanese ambassador to Russia, Shawki Bou Nassar, denied having official information on this issue, “except for what we hear frequently.” Meanwhile, Lebanon’s honorary consul in Belarus, Guevara Selim, said that companies are working with universities in cities far from the capital, ruling out any exploitation of students “considering that the fees are advertised on the websites of Belarusian universities. . The fees are relatively acceptable and nothing will be accomplished. ” He explained that the intermediary companies in Belarus accompany the student for a year, after which their relationship becomes direct with the university. He denied having received complaints in this regard.
A member of the Association of Lebanese Students Families Abroad, Sami Hamia, confirmed to “Al-Akhbar” that this trade “has become commonplace. About 70% of universities in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine have this mediator and practice illegal brokerage and impose a fait accompli on students. It is true that the agreement includes only the first year, but the student is caught on the hook where he does not know and becomes a prisoner of the universities until completing his specialization. He described what is happening as a “fraud and fraud, since the profits that some companies collect can reach 40 percent of the value of the fee.” The director of the Russian Cultural Center in Beirut, Vadim Zaichikov, was quoted as saying that “this trade is active, especially in poor universities.”

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