After severing all ties with Russia, Texas A&M announced that they will cover full room and board and tuition fees for Ukrainian students.
According to the Star Telegraph, at each of the eleven Texas A&M campuses, Ukrainian students can expect some sort of relief. According to The Hill, fourteen students who could receive free rooming and/or tuition have already been identified. In addition, Texas A&M will modify some campuses to allow for displaced Ukrainian students and professors to stay and continue to study. The grants are scheduled to be awarded next semester.
The funds will come out of the Regents’ Grant Program, with Chancellor John Sharp stating that students can receive up to $25,000. The program was created after Hurricane Harvey to help victims in the school system but has since been used to fund a variety of students in need. In 2018, the Texas A&M board voted to allow the Regent’s Grant Program to assist students who are having difficulty paying for tuition, regardless of circumstance, The Houston Chronicle reports.
“During Hurricane Harvey, we used it to pay tuition. We used to buy books to replace books, to replace clothes, all kinds of things like that. Whatever it takes to make sure that these Ukrainian students are able to stay in school,” Chancellor Sharp stated. He was concerned that Ukrainian students may “no longer have homes to return to, and their parents remain unable to work…or worse.”
Texas A&M seeks to send a clear message to Russia and Putin. In the past weeks, the university stopped research contracts with Russia and outlawed any collaboration, per a KAGS report. Aggie Nadiia Viituk said that she has lots of family members in Ukraine and believes that Texas A&M is doing the right thing. “I’m really proud of my university that they do that because as I mentioned before, a lot of people just talk and there’s like no actions involved,” Viituk said, who added that she has met many fellow Ukrainians throughout the process.
