University Student Numbers Will Not Surge as PM Expects, Sources Say, and Landlords Could be Left with Empty Rentals

University Student Numbers Will Not Surge as PM Expects, Sources Say, and Landlords Could be Left with Empty Rentals 

While the country’s leader attempts to clarify his pre-election promises regarding free tuition to The University of the West Indies Five Islands (The UWI-FI), observers are warning that his projections for rapid expansion may fall short of the mark – and they point to a local medical school as an example. 

According to insiders, staff at the well-known institution are now working “days on days off,” and this is not related to the routine summer break.  Instead, they note that enrollment is down due to a number of factors – and this could have a negative impact on the local economy. 

Chief among the factors, they say, is that the current United States Administration has changed the rules on financial aid for American students studying abroad, making offshore education less affordable and, therefore, less attractive.

With the drop in enrollment comes less revenue, and lower revenues necessitate staff cutbacks, they noted. This means that locals working for the institution could end up underemployed or unemployed altogether.

The knock-on effect is that these persons will have less income – or none at all – at a time when the cost of living has spiked, with cost increases in food, electricity, travel and, soon, water.

The sources worry, too, that many landlords who counted on medical students as high-paying tenants could be left with empty apartments and no money to service their mortgages.

Ironically, they claim that the least likely to feel this pinch are “the landlords in Government” whose properties are priority rentals at the university.  “So their apartments are always filled,” one source says, “even in the summer when they have short-term rentals.”

The insiders predict the rising costs of travel and other related expenses will also put a damper on regional education, including The UWI-FI, as Antigua and Barbuda is “a very expensive place to live.”

Therefore the massive enrollment the prime minister is expecting to carry the expenses of that campus will not materialize the way he hopes, the sources say.

Asked about the expected “cushion” the recently announced windfall tax should provide for education, the sources point out that this will not help the staff of the medical school, as it is a private institution. 

Further, they predict that this windfall tax is likely to cause businesses to "cook their books” to under-report their profits. “After all, who wants to pay more taxes?” they ask. “All that will do in reality is drive up the cost of living even more.”