Ramla Khalid is a second-year Bachelor of Arts (Cultural Studies) student who lives in Carnes Hill in Western Sydney. Working three full shifts a week with a commute of approximately two hours each way to afford her studies, she is frank about not being able to participate much in campus life other than contributing to Honi and Pulp.
She is also a MySydney Scholar, one of many hundreds receiving money as part of the University’s attempt at addressing its chronically low intake of socio-economically disadvantaged students, which ranks in the bottom five of all universities nationally – a figure that has barely moved in the past decade. The Scholarship offers $8,500 per annum and a host of supports such as free USU Rewards membership.
“I don’t know how to meet my attendance requirement due to the travel distance,” she explains. The distance combined with part-time work has caused her to struggle to meet attendance requirements and fail units. “Everyone’s event times are too long and take place in the evening.”
Meanwhile, Rose Cooke, a second-year student and Sydney University Dramatic Society (SUDS) member who is studying for an Arts degree majoring in Socio-Legal Studies, was only able to navigate and balance first year thanks to a full accommodation scholarship to live in the Queen Mary Building (QMB). With her home located 90 minutes away in Katoomba, if it were not for the scholarship and staff at USyd’s Student Life team, she might not have chosen to study at USyd altogether.
“There was a lady [in Student Life] who gave me the scholarship. She, literally, facilitated the whole thing and was the most helpful,” Cooke says, praising the Student Life staff who helped in her application process.
If it were not for the staff’s willingness to consider her for an accommodation scholarship, Cooke says that she would have chosen a different institution.
“That was a really great resource because I had no idea how to get through these things [administrative systems].”
Cultural and class divide on campus leading to culture shock
Beyond the cost of living, what struck both Khalid and Cooke was a sense that Sydney was far more elitist and less culturally diverse than their home communities. For Khalid, the lack of cultural diversity took her by surprise.
“Where I come from is very multicultural whereas at USyd and coming from Western Sydney, USyd has a reputation for being white and I think many of us were scared,” Khalid says.
Sydney University’s lack of cultural diversity is reflected in her own politics classes where she was often the “only” non-white person. In one unit, classroom discourse surrounding readings assigned about the Hijab made her feel “awkward” because everyone else in her tutorial “did not know” how to “navigate around” Khalid as a person wearing a Hijab.
Similarly, Cooke shared that she felt at odds with the high proportion of privately educated students at USyd. As of 2021, the proportion of privately educated students at the University stood at 32%, exceeding both Oxford and Cambridge’s numbers.
“When I first came to university, it was a culture shock because I went to a quite poor high school and I didn’t really know anyone who was upper-middle class growing up because it was like one private school where I grew up in the Mountains,” she says.
“It was really weird meeting all these people from all these private schools and I did have a lot of trouble feeling out of place.”
Stronger accommodation scholarships, support, and better administration are desperately needed
Although Sydney offers multiple accommodation scholarships such as the MySydney Equity Accommodation Scholarship that pays 60% of costs associated with university-owned housing, the number of affordable student beds has fallen in the past few years due to sales of the Arundel Terraces and uncertain futures of the Darlington Terraces.
Cooke argues that the University can and should step up to offer full accommodation scholarships rather than capping support at 60%.
“I feel like they’ve gone back on a few of the things they did in the first year because it was such a new thing,” Cooke says. “They [Student Life] called me and [said] instead of deferring, we can offer you free accommodation for a year and you can come to the university.”
In conjunction with better housing, Khalid points to clearer information and administrative support for MySydney Scholars, including prospective students, are crucial to ensuring that the program is genuinely accessible.
“I have a friend who got E12 but did not get MySydney even though she came to the [university] at the same time as me,” she says. “She resented it a little bit because of that.”
Khalid herself was close to not opting for USyd if it were not for MySydney as the scholarship was the thin difference between choosing between Sydney and UNSW.
“I think help with the administration of MySydney at the beginning would be great. I contacted the University to see if I was eligible and was initially told no but then received an offer in the end.”
Despite the reservations they have, Khalid and Cooke are united in the view that MySydney represents an improved, if overdue stepping stone to making inroads into USyd’s longstanding elitism.
“Accommodation is way too expensive and giving them [students] those scholarships and offering that could make a huge difference to us.”
