Iran Feature: Students Suffer as Currency Falls (Torbati)
Friday, October 19, 2012 at 6:45
Twice in less than a year, Neda's ambitions to study outside her native Iran have been wrecked by the collapse of the country's currency.
She and thousands of other students have watched helplessly as Western sanctions, and the abolition of a government policy that helped students meet their costs, have made a foreign degree so expensive as to be nearly impossible.
With the support of her parents, Neda was first set to go to northern Cyprus in January to study communications. But U.S. sanctions against Iran's central bank prompted a slide in the rial's exchange rate that month, putting the $1,500 per semester tuition out of reach of her upper middle class family, an indication of how the squeeze is affecting even the well-off.
"I had been accepted to the school and everything was ready to go," said Neda, 27, speaking to Reuters by telephone from Iran. "But when foreign currency became so expensive, I had to cancel my plans."
Neda then planned to go abroad for this year's autumn semester. But the sanctions, imposed over Iran's disputed nuclear program, triggered another plunge.