Students criticize Krautstengl in open letter

AAU President Alan Krautstengel received an open letter this week that asks him to rethink new out-of-state fee and book-administration-fee policies and demands a public apology for the list of students with outstanding financial obligations the school put up. The letter comes from a group of ten Comparative Law students.

The letter's three main concerns are:

1. The new textbook deposit and loan fees seem to be in breach of the students' contracts. The letter argues the school's own Codex states that the tuition already includes all reading required for each course. It also argues that Krautstengl promised not to impose any more fees on continuing students after he last raised the tuition in 2009.
    
2. Charging EU nationals without Czech permanent residency an out-of-state fee appears discriminatory, contradictory to the school's own anti-discriminatory policy and against EU law. It also remains unclear why the fee exists and what extra costs it covers. If the school imposed the fee illegally, the students should be refunded. The 4.500 CZK fee should be waived for all students.
   AAU's statute says “Conditions of study for foreigners are the same as those for students who are state citizens of the Czech Republic.”
    
3. The list of students with outstanding financial obligations that the school put up is called “wrong, unethical and unacceptable”. The letter expresses “great disappointment bordering with disgust” and argues that taking the lists down is not enough but that the school should apologize publicly. 

Signatories of the letter and members of the Student Council met on Thursday to discuss the issues and further action.

In the meantime Krautstengl announced the decision to “postpone the reader/textbook conversion for Spring 2012” in an email after he had “received quite a few e-mails from students.” During May he wants to discuss the matter with students and then announce a new policy.

The full letter and the updated financial summary may be downloaded below.