Free Graduation Ceremony Tickets
Category: Sunderland Petitions
Voting closed
University Graduations have responded:
"The difficult decision has been made to introduce paid ticketing for all guests attending the ceremonies for winter 2024 graduations and beyond, as stated on our website. The graduate tickets remain free, but guest tickets will no longer be free of charge. This decision has been made in light of the financial challenges facing the higher education sector. We, like many universities across the country, are putting in place a range of measures to ensure our good financial health going forward and so that we can continue to invest in our students and facilities. Graduation ceremonies are an important part of the student experience, but they are delivered at a significant cost. Due to current financial pressures, we have introduced this measure to partially offset the cost of delivery. Every year, a significant proportion of graduates choose not to attend graduation; by not putting in place measures to offset the cost, it means those who choose not to attend are still subsiding the event through their fees. Charging for guest tickets is common practice at many other institutions. We appreciate this is disappointing for our graduates and we would like to reassure you that this is not a decision that we’ve taken lightly.
With regards to children attending the ceremonies, we fully support our graduates to share this special occasion with their children. We support graduates on an individual basis and have even supported graduates to cross the stage accompanied by their baby in a sling. As you will appreciate, we have a duty to ensure the safety of all or our guests and our message was intended to address previous instances, where graduates had not booked tickets for their children or stated that they had small children able to sit on laps. When this was not the case, it meant seats were taken up that had not been booked."
Free Graduation Ceremony Tickets
I believe that the £30 ticket fee for each visitor at graduation ceremonies is unfair. Whilst we understand the University's current financial situation, it is unfair that students who have had to deal with the Cost of Living Crisis, some of which are limited to only working 20 hours, now have to buy graduation tickets for visitors for £30.
Please, sign this petition to request the University to ensure graduation visitor tickets are free.
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University of Sunderland Students' Union
City Campus,
Edinburgh Building, Chester Road
Sunderland, SR1 3SD
Company limited by guarantee.
Company registered in England no: 07702161
Registered Charity no: 1148212
VAT no: 178592316
Comments
I am a master's student at the London campus, about to finish my course. I am surprised to see such a high cost of £30 for a graduation ticket. This feels unfair, especially to international students who are already facing job challenges. I humbly request that our university administration reconsider this matter and consider making the tickets free.
I’m graduating this November and can’t afford the £30 graduation ceremony fee for my spouse to attend. It’s so sad
I am a master's student at the Sunderland campus, about to finish my course. I am surprised to see such a high cost of £30 for a graduation ticket. This feels unfair, especially to international students who are already facing job challenges. I humbly request that our university administration reconsider this matter and consider making the tickets free.
Given that this graduating set which I'm part of faced lots of challenges which includes hike in exchange rate and the lack of jobs which many of us suffered, I think the school should reconsider and relax this subscription fee please. Let this be one thing the school can use to compensate us for the mental stress and strain. If our predecessors enjoyed it, why can't we? This isn't right for the school to want to still reap us off at this time. Please not any more.
I am graduating this coming November I don't have that amount to pay for the gown school school make it free like previous set.
Please I am graduating soon and the graduating ceremony fee is too much, the university should please reconsider
I am graduating this November, paying £30 for each guest it too much we can’t afford it , it just be free like last year set thank you
I really don't understand why we have to pay to bring our guest to celebrate with us after the mental stress we have been through for one year, it really not an easy journey. Please, I seek that the management have to look into this payment of £30 and to allow us celebrate with Joy with our guest. Please, we can not afford the £30
It is on record that graduation has been free. With this understanding I did not make any provision for graduation tickets. Besides, it seems punitive and I strongly protest against it. Kindly revert back to free ticket now and moving forward.
I am a master's student at the London campus, about to finish my course. I am surprised to see such a high cost of £30 for a graduation ticket. This feels unfair, especially to international students who are already facing job challenges. I humbly request that our university administration reconsider this matter and consider making the tickets free
I am a master's student at the Sunderland campus, about to finish my course. I am surprised to see such a high cost of £30 for a graduation ticket humbly request that our university administration reconsider this matter and consider making the tickets free
The University should be considerate for once at least to international students who have really paid a lot to school here. I enrolled into this school based on positive recommendation from my friend, and I sincerely wish to also recommend someone else but this has got to go first.
Make the graduation ceremony free for my guest. I can’t afford to pay £30 each for my guest
The proposal overlooks the University of Sunderland's existing provision of one complimentary ticket for the graduate and two additional free tickets for guests, with further tickets available at £30 each. As reported by the Office for National Statistics (2022), there are an estimated 28.2 million households in the UK, with an average of 2.36 residents per household. Given this demographic data, I believe allowing unlimited guest tickets for each graduate is not a feasible solution. To address this fairly, I suggest that the university consider amending the current ticket policy by increasing the complimentary allocation to three guest tickets per graduate, in addition to the graduate's free ticket. This would allow each student to bring a total of four attendees, accommodating both parents and a dependent if desired. This approach balances inclusivity and logistical feasibility without introducing excessive costs or overcrowding at graduation events.
This is highly unfair.
This is unfair and not nice. I have a lot of expenses already, adding £60 is a lot
This is unfair and not nice. I have a lot of expenses already, adding £60 is a lot
Please take of the 30£
I think it’s unfair to pay for my guests to come celebrate my graduation with me having paid £15,000 in just two installments as an international student. It should also be put into consideration that these family members that wants to come from abroad to celebrate our graduation with us would still have to cover other expenses like visa and flight fees.
£30 per person is a crazy amount to ask
Unfair when it's been free in the past, most students, especially international, will struggle with this when already having to pay high costs on everything else living and studying. Graduation should go back to being free.
I am a masters student at the riverside campus, due to graduate soon. £30 is a hefty fee for many to pay and especially unfair on students already paying high tuition fees in a struggling economy. It feels extortionate that subsequent tickets can cost up to £100. It's blatantly unfair and hope the university will exercise its goodwill towards the students that keep it alive by seeing a reduction in ticket prices.
One of my friend who was a student in Sunderland, she said they haven’t charged for 2guests last July graduation 2024. Atleast why they can not give a 1 free guest? I had to pay 60£ for my 2 guests and 32£ for the gown. Really unfair and Im broke 💔
Since when did people start paying to attend graduation?we are really struggling to get out fees paid,then they want to add us extra pounds?it's very unfair...as international students,some of us will be flying our parents to the UK to celebrate with us which already costs a lot of money!
£30 per guest is quite a large fee when you consider students are already paying thousands a year for tuition, even more for international students, plus the already existing fee of the graduation gown rental.
£30 is a significant amount of money that our families have to pay to attend graduation who have already paid for our expensive tuition fees. Many of our families are already burdened of the cost to come to the UK from our respective countries which are often half way across the world. It is not fair for them to pay another £30 per person, it is still a significant amount of money in the UK and it is basically a fortune especially for people from developing countries.
£30 for a graduation ticket is an absolute disgrace, it’s already so expensive to come to uni and I don’t think it’s fair that we are being charged a ridiculous amount to have our family and friends attend our graduation!
It’s sad to know that we are now being charged for graduation invite , for me that my parents has never missed any of my graduation ceremony since my nursery days, now this family tradition will be stopped. As an international student we have faced so many challenges and after the perseverance we are will now be deprived of having to celebrate with our loved ones.
£30 is way overpriced! Why should our family be unable to come and celebrate our achievements because of an unfair price? We’ve paid over £27,000 to graduate. The least they can do is give us free tickets #StudentsUnite!
Please make it free again, 30 pounds is too expensive per person
As an international student who may have loved ones attending from afar when I graduate, it is unfair to ask them to pay £30 per person when they will have already spent hundreds of pounds in airfare to attend.
It is so unfortunate we take the heat of every hash policy made. Asking for £30 for each guest is like denying our love ones from celebrating with us.
Graduation is already an expensive event for many home and international students - buying outfits, hiring robes, travel, accommodation so to add this significant extra cost is ridiculous. When Durham, Newcastle and Northumbria Uni's all allow for the usual 2 free tickets, this move will just result in more and more students from deprived backgrounds and under financial constraints missing out on a ceremony they've already invested tens of thousands of pounds into
I speak to all the international students when I say that this is purely uncalled for. If the previous graduates didn't have to pay, why should we? We already pay ALOT to just attend, not to mention living costs and the costs of buying materials. Not to mention that finding a student job that fits visa requirements is very hard. we go through so much, every single discision is stressful, and every move we take is costly. All we ask is to be stress free when we celebrate our success. WE DESERVE TO CELEBRATE STRESS FREE!!!
Just like other international students, I'm also surprised by the feeling, I hope the university would make necessary changes accordingly
It’s quite unfair to pay for our love ones to witness us graduate!!! It’s unfair to students and parents that paid huge sum of school fees!!
How can we justify paying higher ups £300k salaries and not even allowing students whose fees keep this place going two free tickets to their graduation? It's disgusting.
Unfair
I have three teenage children who I would like to attend to experience the ceremony and see what dreams and aspirations can achieve. I have struggled with no financial support for 4 years now as I am married and we live on one wage. It has been a rewarding but challenging experience and to discredit our hard work by further penalising us financially is absolutely immoral. It really does not make sense financially to pur up parking charges and charge for graduation tickets when it's putting people off attending the University. What happened to the community feel and wellbeing ethos?
I am a mature student with a husband and four children. I believe that going to see a parent graduate creates aspirational goals for children of students and is highly important for their future career progression ideology. Particularly when coming from a background where university is not the norm. Whilst I accept 5 people is too much to expect the university to pay for, having no free guest tickets seriously impacts the affordability of this experience for my family. Watching via video link would not be a suitably engaging experience either because it would be a detached unrelatable experience. I urge the University to consider the wider impact of the costs involved with ceremonies particularly for engaging with future widening participation.
I think it is disgusting. All the University care about is money! Food prices massive increase in price since I started in 2021 (entering stupid 10 year contracts for catering), parking up an astonishing amount, a boom of international students in the past 5 years who pay more than double to study here yet still increasing everything, closing the libraries so they aren't 24/7 anymore. What has the university done to support students at all? What is encouraging people to study here? Why should people bother! Literally the government are increasing tuition fees next year, the university needs to get a grip!
The scrapping of two free guest tickets, without any warning or consultation is an insult to Sunderland university students. The university prides its self on having students from over 100 countries and winning social mobility awards. When international students, who represent nearly 40% of the student body are limited in the number of hours they can work and already paying increased fees, it is unfair and insulting to now expect them to pay for all graduation tickets. Additionally, nearly 75% of the student body are mature students and Sunderland has a high proportion of students from the North East. Mature students are more likely to face financial hardship when studying whilst the North East is one of the most economically deprived areas of the U.K. Again, it is unfair to expect these students to now pay for all tickets especially when the university prides itself on the social mobility awards it has won…. Whilst I understand the university is facing financial pressures and I would not expect them to fund all guest tickets, to scrap the two free tickets is unjust. A better cost reduction measure would be to not offer food at graduations - I don’t know other universities that do this/it has not been offered at graduations at other NE universities I have attended - thus reducing the amount the stadium of light charges to host the ceremonies. This would also be better from a sustainability perspective as I imagine there is a significant amount of food waste. Savings from this could then be passed onto students in the form of having two free guest tickets back.
Shocking
I want to be able to have family there when I do eventually graduate.
I understand that the venue that the graduation holds can be pretty pricy, but we international students had paid around 14k GBP per year, and having to pay an extra £30 per ticket just to bring our loved ones to graduation makes us reconsider about attending or bringing them to the graduation.
£30 is unjustified after working so hard for a degree this will cause students to not be able to celebrate their achievements with their loved ones
Having to pay £30 per person is already expensive enough having to watch me graduate in the future but it’s also unfair that previous graduates don’t get to pay or at least not £30. Now my family has to pay not just the flight but also the graduate fees?! That’s just too much!
Is there anything that they won't try to rinse money out of us for? Disgraceful
It's already hard enough to get by in the current economy and to have this fee to calibrate our achievement after giving the university more than 9 grand a year is ville. Greedy back stabbing bastards. How many people are having to pay the £6 just to park anyway! It's a crappy move for a self proclaimed top university.
The continuing cash grabs at this University (increase in parking, removal of childcare facilities, now this) are disgusting - while David Bell collects his salary of over 300k per year.
The Uni should be so ashamed theyve done this, disappointing so many students who’ve worked hard to graduate, some people who may now have no one there to support them because they can’t afford it, disgusting. Maybe if they hadn’t increased the parking to £6 people might be in a better financial situation.
The Uni should be so ashamed theyve done this, disappointing so many students who’ve worked hard to graduate, some people who may now have no one there to support them because they can’t afford it, disgusting. Maybe if they hadn’t increased the parking to £6 people might be in a better financial situation.
I am an undergraduate student and I’m in my final year. This £30 graduation ticket is unfair especially to international students. I understand that the University might be facing some financial challenges at the moment but they should also take into consideration the input of international students to the University financially wise. Graduation day is meant to be a day of celebration, having your loved ones close to share in your joy. The free tickets provides that for people who can’t afford to invite more than 2 guests for free. The University administration should please reconsider.
So not only do we have to pay for: transport and gown attire, but we also have to pay over £60 if we want our families to come to our ceremony?? No thanks, I don’t consent to that! As an international student, the cost of living and tuition fees is already a lot. I could understand when we had 2 free tickets then payed extra for more guests last year during my BA. As I’m doing my masters now and seeing the difference, it’s just ridiculous to be honest.
I graduate next year and feel the fee is unrealistic, during the cost of living crisis as well as the cost we students are now facing due to the uni having financial problems ie carpark cost is ridiculous now to pay £30 to attend graduation plus the costs of gowns etc is unfair when we have worked so hard for 3 years if not longer. The uni should not pass this cost to us and should support us on this celebration
I find it abhorrent that the university want to charge some of the most financially vulnerable people in the country to celebrate a milestone event considering we've just paid them £9250/year, and more if you're an international student! I'll be graduating next year and want my spouse and daughter to attend - since he is also a higher education student, we won't be able to afford the fees.