KARACHI: While the country has been undergoing a tough financial phase since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, over 16,500 students from the University of Karachi’s morning and evening programmes have failed to pay their fees over the past four years. A statement from the KU revealed during a meeting on Wednesday that ‘as many as 16,506 students from the morning, evening, and executive MBA programmes had not paid their long-outstanding dues amounting to over Rs2.1 billion from 2020 to 2024.’ The meeting, chaired by KU Vice Chancellor Dr Khalid Mahmood Iraqi, expressed concern over the ‘huge amount outstanding against the defaulter students.’ Instead of considering the students’ financial difficulties, the meeting decided that the defaulting students “should not be allowed to appear in the exams and that their admit cards must not be issued under any circumstances.” The meeting also discussed a proposal to cancel the enrolment and degrees of students who had completed their graduation but had not paid their fees. “The defaulter students ignored all the opportunities provided by the KU administration to clear their pending dues. It has now been decided that only evening programme students who have cleared all their dues will receive admit cards and be allowed to appear in exams,” the statement concluded. A senior KU faculty member, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Dawn that the university administration had unjustly increased tuition fees over the past four years. He pointed out that many of the so-called defaulter students had already abandoned their studies because they could not afford the fees. He suggested that KU should approach the Sindh government for a bailout package.