New MultiPass bursary helps exchange students

Exchange students aren’t currently included in the U-Pass agreement

A new plan is in motion to hopefully give exchange students access to Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s U-Pass/MultiPass program. The U-Pass provides students with access to public transit at a discount rate, and the MultiPass provides additional benefits to Kwantlen students, like the campus-to-campus shuttle, a car-sharing program, bike lockers, and discounted fitness centre passes.

The U-Pass agreement was negotiated between KPU, the Kwantlen Student Association, and TransLink in 2009, but it didn’t recognize exchange students as a beneficiary of the agreement. Waheed Taiwo, the KSA’s Vice President of finance and operations, says a new plan is in motion to correct this original mistake.

The plan is to offer a bursary to exchange students in order to cover the extra costs of buying a monthly pass on their own.

“Since 2009, all exchange students coming to KPU have had to pay the full amount for the compass card,” says Taiwo. The bursary will essentially split the difference between the full cost and the reduced cost non-exchange students pay.

It is not entirely clear as to why the exchange students were left out of the agreement in the first place. Taiwo says he doesn’t think it was intentional. “I think it was more of an administrative oversight,” he says. “KPU has had a lot of new people in administration now, and most of them were quite surprised.”

Taiwo says it’s paramount that we treat our student equally and fairly.

“We want to ensure that we don’t leave any group of students out from the benefits we do have, even though they might only be here for a few months, at maximum a year, they’re still a part of the culture,” he says. “Part of the reason for having exchange students over is for our students to have a multi-cultural experience.”

The Multi-Pass Bursary for Exchange Students will begin to serve students in the upcoming summer semester.