Covenant College’s policy requiring international students to obtain health insurance changed in the fall semester of 2021, resulting in financial tensions and hard feelings for international students.
Prior to 2021, Covenant required international students on the F-1 student visa to have health insurance. Students were free to find a plan that best fit their budget and needs, meaning that health coverage differed significantly from student to student.
In January of 2021, Student Development announced its intention to require students to purchase health insurance through the college. For several students, this change in policy was a source of stress: the new insurance company Covenant used was, on average, more expensive than what they had been paying.
For many international students, this was a significant financial challenge.
In a time of rampant inflation, not only in the United States, but around the world, the additional costs were high enough to cause concern for many of the international students and their parents.
Many F-1 students come from countries with unstable economies, where setting aside money for unexpected costs like a sudden rise in insurance prices is incredibly difficult, if not impossible. Factor in the inflation wreaking havoc on international exchange rates, and the college’s new insurance fee was a severe burden for many students and their families. Jamie Stambolie (’23), an F-1 visa student from Zimbabwe, explained how the added cost affected international students in 2021:
“It was a readjustment for me and my family. In more unstable economies, with inflation going crazy all the time in Zimbabwe, it was an unexpected add-on.”
Student Development recognized the difficulty of this decision. Although the previous policy allowed more flexibility for F-1 students and their families, international students often had limited healthcare coverage, risking high out-of-pocket charges in the event of an accident or health issue that required treatment.
In an interview in September of 2022, Nesha Evans, Associate Dean of Students, said that it was a difficult decision to make.
“Frankly, I’m not someone who wants to create an added expense for someone, and I want them to have an equal education opportunity … and yet I also recognize that there are some added security measures that need to be put in place for F-1 students because they are in our care.”
The new policy was met with dissatisfaction from F-1 visa students. When the new policy went into effect in the fall of 2021, students felt that they had not been sufficiently notified of the change, despite communications from Student Development the previous spring. Because the decision affected a smaller cohort of students and not the larger student body, students like Promise Igbanu (’23) from Nigeria and Martín Landázuri (’23) from Ecuador wish they could have been a bigger part of the conversation.
Landázuri’s problem isn’t with the change in policy itself.
“Changes need to be made, and that’s fine,” he said. “But the fact that a lot of us didn’t really know about it, to me, that shows kind of a lack of care.”
Evans noted that the majority of higher-education institutions in the United States already provide insurance for international students and that this change in policy was a transition to more reliable coverage that would be less costly in the case of an emergency.
Evans acknowledged that, as in any institutional change, much of the dissatisfaction with the new policy stems from a friction in which students under the old plan had to shift into a new situation. In these cases, students often feel penalized for their vulnerabilities.
Evans said, “That’s not the case at all. I was made aware that it was going to be hard, and so I knew. But at the end of the day, a decision had to be made, and it had to be made in the best interests of the students.”
Although Covenant still requires that students purchase insurance through the college, Student Development made the decision to switch to a new insurance plan that, although still more expensive than what most students had paid in the past, is cheaper than the initial college-mandated plan.
The current situation leaves international students with certain questions: did Covenant notify students with enough time to prepare for the financial change? Could Covenant have provided more assistance for the students in transition? Because their visas prevent employment outside of the college, should the college pay international students more than work-study rates?