Stu­dents from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) grad­u­at­ing class 2021 are com­plain­ing about the price of this year’s grad­u­a­tion por­trait. They said the cost is now more than dou­ble that of last year and many of them can­not af­ford it.

“The price for our grad­u­a­tion por­traits this year is ba­si­cal­ly be­yond ridicu­lous, the cost is now at a whop­ping 240 dol­lars as op­pose to the 100 dol­lars that was of­fered last year,” 2021 grad­u­ate Sha­ian Bal­li­ram said.

Bal­li­ram who is grad­u­at­ing with a Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in Ed­u­ca­tion (Pri­ma­ry) along with her col­league Yan­na Dyett who is grad­u­at­ing with a Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions and Span­ish spoke with Guardian Me­dia out­side the St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus on Wednes­day.

They said they do not be­lieve the break­down of the cost was jus­ti­fied es­pe­cial­ly af­ter all their hard work in the last three to four years.

An emailed re­sponse sent from the grad­u­a­tion com­mit­tee to Dyett when she ques­tioned the price said, that the 240 dol­lars cost was not de­ter­mined in an ad hoc man­ner and can­not be low­ered.

Dyett said this ex­pla­na­tion was not good enough.

“We have a prob­lem with the lack of re­sponse and in­ter­est by the UWI grad­u­a­tion com­mit­tee when we raised their mat­ters…the lack of in­ter­est on their part to com­pro­mise,” Dyett said.

The stu­dents al­so called for clar­i­ty on what the fee will cov­er, ac­cord­ing to Dyett an email sent to them said it will be for one dig­i­tal pho­to­graph.

“It did not in­clude any laun­der of the re­galia noth­ing of the sort but they are in­fer­ring that it did but in the email, it does not say any­thing con­cern­ing that so we are a lit­tle bit con­fused,” Dyett added.

UWI Guild Pres­i­dent Kobe Sandy said he en­quired about the cost from UWI and was told that the 240 dol­lars will cov­er laun­dry ser­vices and the rights for the pho­to to be giv­en back to the stu­dents.

He said he un­der­stands the con­fu­sion caused by the email that did not state what the fee would cov­er and com­mu­ni­cat­ed that with the ad­min­is­tra­tion. But now that it’s cleared up he said the price was jus­ti­fied even as they con­tin­ue to ne­go­ti­ate.

While Bal­li­ram and Dyett spoke out they were not the on­ly stu­dents who raised con­cerns about the cost. On so­cial me­dia, Rene said she felt dis­re­spect­ed as a stu­dent and Clare ques­tioned how UWI spends its mon­ey as she claimed the school was al­ways broke.

And if the stu­dent is un­able to pay the cost ac­cord­ing to Bal­li­ram, “it’s like you did not grad­u­ate.”

“Every­body de­serves the right, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be seen on the slide show of their vir­tu­al grad­u­a­tion,” Bal­li­ram said.

“I have a num­ber of friends who can­not pay that cost… how would you feel if that was you?” Dyett asked.

They sug­gest­ed that those who can­not make the $240 should be able to sub­mit their own pho­to so they can be dis­played on their big day.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to grad­u­at­ing com­mit­tee who re­ferred our ques­tions to the Mar­ket­ing & Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit for the nec­es­sary re­sponse.

It said the UWI has been ad­dress­ing the con­cerns and had a re­cent town hall about the mat­ter on Sep­tem­ber 2.

The unit said the UWI is mind­ful of stu­dents fi­nan­cial chal­lenges and is look­ing in­to the mat­ter.

Grad­u­a­tion for these stu­dents start on Oc­to­ber 28 and ends on the 30.