The Board of Trustees passed a proposal Feb. 27 to increase the limit of international students City College accepts, from five to six percent.

However, the board amended the language in the proposal to “maintain as close to five percent as possible,” after Trustee Desmond O’Neill voiced opposition to the original wording of the plan.

Currently, 1,075 international students are enrolled at City College, and the raise will allow another 125 students to apply for next semester.

In the last year, an increase in international students has generated $1 million in additional funds for the college.

About 70 percent of that revenue is from the increase in students and 30 percent is from the increase in tuition.

International students now pay $208 per unit, which is an increase from last semester’s per-unit fee of $188.  The Board of Trustees approved the increase during their Jan. 22 meeting.

Carola Smith, the international program senior director, said that they have already hired a fourth student advisor, and sees this increase as a huge advantage for the college.

“Ask faculty, they enjoy having international students in their classes, and so do the students,” Smith said.

Smith said the college had already exceeded the enrollment capacity, so the increase recently implemented by Trustees will not drastically affect City College.

“We don’t want to grow the amount of international students to the point that we cannot accommodate our local students,”  she said, maintaining that a limit is necessary.

Some students, however, opposed the proposal. Ida Bjornstad, a Swedish student attending City College, sees this as a negative change.

“We had a hard time getting our classes since we didn’t have the opportunity to pick courses before we got here,” Bjornstad said. “It would be even harder if there are more international students.”

Yue Yan, a computer engineering major and international student, thinks it’s great to have the ability to learn about different cultures.

However, she expressed wishes that there were a bigger variety among the international students, which she says is currently dominated with students from Asia.