An online post uploaded on Aug. 5 by University of Alberta student Kempes Pandey has sparked a conversation about the university’s Displaced and Disrupted Palestinian Student Tuition Support (DDPS) program following the shutdown of pro-Palestinian efforts on campus in 2024.
Pandey posted the video in response to a Palestinian student from Gaza who shared that he had been granted domestic, rather than international, tuition rates through the DDPS program. Pandey expressed surprise that the university offered the program, describing its approach to supporting Palestinian students as “performative.”
The DDPS program launched in 2025 as part of the university’s broader Disrupted Palestinian Students and Scholars (DPSS) initiative. It initially provided a bursary that displaced Palestinian students could apply for before shifting to reduced tuition rates in 2026. There were 21 students under the program as of the fall 2025 term.
Eligibility for the tuition support program is restricted to students who hold Palestinian citizenship or a Palestinian passport and have been “directly impacted by the war in Gaza.” Direct impact includes students who are currently living in Gaza or the West Bank, and students who previously lived in the area and left before or after October 2023 because of the genocide.
The broader DPSS initiative also includes the Virtual Scholars program, which began in the winter 2026 term. The program supports up to six Palestinian scholars through a $2,000 honorarium and virtual residency. However, the page for this program has since been taken down on the university’s website.
However, the university is facing criticism over what some see as a contradiction between its support for displaced Palestinian students and its response to pro-Palestinian activism on campus.
“This is the same university that destroyed and raided a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus, the same university that is setting up an elite network to monitor and identify pro-Palestinian students.”
– Kempes Pandey, University of Alberta student and social media creator
On May 11, 2024, a two-day pro-Palestinian encampment was forcibly removed by Edmonton police. Protestors called on the university to address its ties to and divest from Israeli companies. As of April 2026, two alumni and one current professor have filed a Charter challenge against the university over its response to the encampment.
Following backlash over the university’s decision to involve police in the encampment, the Board of Governors released its Encampment Report, in which university President Bill Flanagan apologized for how the event was handled.
“I want to acknowledge that calling for the assistance of the police has caused hurt and trauma for many university community members and beyond,” said Flanagan in the report. “I deeply regret the harm experienced by our community members as a result of the actions on May 11.”
In January 2025, the university announced the start of the DDPS program as a bursary.
More than a year later, on July 30, 2026, the Breach published an investigation reporting that both the University of Alberta and MacEwan University participated in a secret, inter-university communication channel used to share information about pro-Palestinian demonstrations and protestors.
Pandey, who has over 8,000 followers on Instagram, used his platform to raise questions about the program and whether the university’s support for Palestinian students is insincere, despite the initiative’s benefits to the displaced students.
Others described the tuition support program as a “step in the right direction.”
