Right now isn't the most fun time to be a Brandeis sophomore.On Friday, the Division of Students and Enrollment notified students via e-mail of a flurry of sudden and extraordinarily inconvenient changes to study abroad policy, putting into jeopardy the plans of current sophomores who had considered studying abroad during the coming academic year.

I'm a first-year, so studying abroad is still in my relatively distant future. But it's blatantly clear to me, just as it should be to anyone, that these new policies are severely beyond justification-and almost certainly immoral.

There are essentially four new policies: A mandatory Preliminary Study Abroad Application, fall-only housing in the Village, a new minimum grade point average requirement and the inability to use merit scholarships abroad.

The most immediate change is the addition of a Preliminary Study Abroad Application, due Feb. 15. The online form is brief and easy to complete. But that's utterly irrelevant when you don't know if or where you're studying outside of Waltham this coming academic year.

With the new policy, the decision to go abroad in nearly a year's time must be made less than a month from now. In the past, students considering studying abroad in the spring had until a fall deadline to make any decision.

If the University had notified students months ago of this change, this Feb. 15 deadline might be acceptable. But now? Absolutely not.

Before the University's decision to change former policies, all current sophomores could also assume forthcoming freedom to live in any of the four areas open to juniors (assuming they receive housing): Ziv Quad, the Charles River Apartments, the Village and the newly-rebuilt Ridgewood Quad.

Though they will be guaranteed fall housing, all current sophomores intending to participate in a spring study-abroad program may only request Village housing with other juniors doing the same.

Some students planning on studying abroad in spring 2010 now must also reconsider preliminary living plans for next year. Although final decisions about roommate situations for the 2009 to 2010 academic year are not due for a few weeks, some sophomores already had begun making plans.

"I've been living with my roommate for the last two years, and all of a sudden they're forcing us to live separately because I'm going abroad, and she's not," said Sasha Kopp '11.

If the Village is filled by juniors going abroad, then by midyears in the second semester, Daniel Sternberg '11 is anticipating a problem for students who are not going abroad. "We don't have the option to live alone. If people don't have a large group of friends to pull them in, they're going to have issues."

The new minimum GPA requirement for study abroad is also incredibly unfair. I don't take issue with arguing that students ought to have at least a 3.0 GPA to go abroad. That isn't the problem. Had students known of this requirement at an earlier time, perhaps some would have put in the extra effort and raised their GPA this past semester.

But as it stands now, even if students with GPAs below the required minimum break that 3.0 ceiling during the upcoming semester, it doesn't matter. Students need the 3.0 to fill out the required Feb. 15 preliminary application. And without that completed form, you'll just have to consider that economics seminar in distant Lemberg as studying abroad.

Although the first three policy shifts are rather inconvenient for prospective study abroad students, the new policy regarding merit scholarship portability is the harshest change, most likely to be blatantly unlawful and a potential dealbreaker to students in the Class of 2011 and all future classes.

Before many of us agreed to attend the University, we were awarded merit scholarships by the University to subsidize our years at Brandeis. Many of us, myself included, came under the assumption that such aid could be applied toward a study abroad program. Now that's no longer true, but we're already here.

Alex Melman '11 is one of the many who received such a scholarship. "In my letter it specifically states that my scholarship will be transferable to study abroad. This was a deciding factor in my decision to attend Brandeis."

We must be able to use merit scholarships on study abroad programs. The University requires that we pay full tuition while abroad rather than the often cheaper program tuition.

If it's financially plausible, I intend on spending a semester at Hebrew University in Jerusalem during my junior year. That program's one-semester tuition is $17,425 -- less than the cost of a semester's tuition at Brandeis.

Especially while that profitable policy continues, it is completely unacceptable that students are to be forbidden from using their merit scholarships toward such a program.

The inability to use merit scholarships abroad saves the University money but will prevent some students, possibly including me, from gaining the experience of studying in a foreign country. Yes, need-based financial aid can be used. But students budgeted according to their financial aid plans when they came here.

This is a very sudden and hefty burden for some students, especially for members of this year's sophomore class who only have until Feb. 15 to work it all out.

Other budget cuts were unfortunate. This one is simply unjustifiable.

In an Oct. 3 e-mail to the Brandeis Community, University President Jehuda Reinharz wrote that "the University is trying to weather this [economic] period without damaging its academic programs." It's now perfectly clear that the University has failed at that goal. I wonder what's next.