Currency Crisis Making Teaching Fees Unpayable, Lebanese Students Say

Currency Crisis Making Teaching Fees Unpayable, Lebanese Students Say

Beirut university student Mohammad El Sahily was close to graduating in computer science, but uncertainty now clouds his future following a plunge in the Lebanese pound that has left him and thousands like him unable to pay their tuition fees.

With Lebanon facing its worst economic crisis ever, two private universities, the American University of Beirut (AUB) and the Lebanese American University (LAU) have raised the exchange rate their fees are based on to 3,900 Lebanese pounds per dollar - at a stroke making teaching almost three times more expensive for students paying in the local currency.

AUB student Sahily was studying for his final exams in December when he received an email announcing the hike.

"(There was) fear, stress, desperation. I don't know what I will do, I can't afford paying for the spring (semester) if I want to take a full load (of courses), so I will have to either take two courses only or nothing at all," he told Reuters.

"This is the case of around 80% of people I know."

Sahily was one of many undergraduates who took to the streets in December to protest the universities'