Nearly 200 Ghanaian students will be allowed to remain at the University of Memphis after their home country paid a $1 million toward the debt it owes the school.
According to Fox 13 Memphis, the payment does not cover the full balance, but will allow the 185 students living in on-campus residencies to stay.
“We remain hopeful that the Republic of Ghana will meet its debt obligations to ensure the students will be able to continue their education through the fall semester,” a spokesperson for the university told the outlet.
As Commercial Appeal reported in July, the Ghana Scholarship
Secretariat, which administers scholarships on behalf of the Republic of Ghana, had not made payment by the due date agreed to by the university and the Republic of Ghana, which put the students on scholarships through the program at risk of losing their places at the University of Memphis.“The Ghana Scholarship Secretariat has failed to fully meet its financial obligations,” the university said in a statement on July 7. “As a result, these students face academic dismissal, visa complications, and loss of housing and support, through no fault of their own if GSS does not fully meet all financial obligations.”
The GSS owes $3.6 million to the university, and including a previous balance of $400,000, reported by Ghanian outlet Ghana Web, it has now paid down $1.4 million of the debt it owes to the University of Memphis.
The leader of the Ghanaian student cohort, Fredrick Badu-Asamoah, indicated at the time that the students had begun to exhaust their actions and were beginning to become frustrated with their situation.
“We’ve written to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ghana Embassy in Washington, the Ghana Scholarships Secretariat, and efforts to reach the presidency proved futile, and we’ve received no decisive intervention,” Badu-Asamoah told the outlet.
Per Ghana Web, a similar predicament had befallen Ghanaian students who were studying abroad in the United Kingdom in May.
According to David Farman, the spokesperson for over 50 students in that country who also rely on the GSS to distribute funding for their education, the students were in limbo at that point, much like students at the University of Memphis were before the GSS made a payment.
“Since last year, October, we received emails from the university concerning the payment of fees. Unfortunately the issue has not been resolved to date,” Farman told Joy News.
He continued, noting that there is a marked discrepancy between what the GSS wants to pay and what the university in England he and others attend will accept.
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