All Posts Tagged With: "tuition cap"

When raising tuition, it seems business programs are the favoured target

The way by which tuition fees are set in Canada is nothing short of insane. There is no overarching principle to point to, such as an agreement on the proportion of their education students should be fairly asked to pay. And while coming to an answer to that question would be wholly arbitrary, it would be nothing compared to the blatantly politicized process being witnessed across the country.

Universities take proposals to provincial governments outlining their financial shortfalls and explain that if only tuition were allowed to rise they could ameliorate their problems. Student groups, in turn, take their own proposals to the government claiming that any tuition hike would be nothing short of devastation. The province then comes to some conclusion based on analysis that must assuredly be plucked from thin air, and then sets the price.

While I am generally unpersuaded by the argument that keeping tuition low is a social necessity, there doesn’t appear to be any coherence to why some faculties are permitted to raise tuition and not others. Or put another way, why students in some faculties will continue to enjoy comparatively lower tuition while others will not.

Just last week, the Alberta government ruled that some faculties were worthy of tuition increases while others were not so worthy of tuition increases. At the University of Alberta tuition will rise between 15 and 66 per cent  in engineering, pharmacy, grad studies and business. Proposed increases for the U of A faculties of medicine, law, dentistry and others were denied. At the University of Calgary, only tuition for business school was permitted to rise.

A similar scenario is about to play out two provinces over as the University of Manitoba is preparing proposals to increase tuition in no fewer than eight professional programs, which want to see tuition rise between 20 and 114 per cent. The first faculty to take its proposal public was the Izzy Asper School of Business, with Dean Glen Feltham holding several Town Halls with students last week. The Manitoba government will only consider tuition increases for professional schools, and none from the arts and science.

The Alberta government argues that the faculties approved for tuition increases made a sound argument as to why, when tuition was reduced to 2004 levels and increases were capped at inflation, tuition was too low to begin with. In addressing these “market anomalies” the government compared the cost of tuition for programs at comparable universities.

Although there is an appeal to some principle, that the benchmark for raising tuition include some reference to costs at other schools, different standards appear to be applied. For instance, why would medicine at the University of Alberta be denied a tuition increase? It is true that at $12, 460 per year, tuition for the U of A’s medical department is somewhat above the national average of $10, 261, but that average includes Quebec where, because of a long-standing tuition freeze, a year of medical school costs $2,468.

Now if you look at schools that the U of A might reasonably be compared with, like, I don’t know, the University of Calgary, which, as I understand, is a short drive from the U of A, a different picture emerges. Medical school tuition at the U of C is $17,850 which is on par with the University of Toronto which charges $17, 200. The U of A proposal to raise med school tuition to $15,100 would have brought it inline with the University of British Columbia, but would still be well below Calgary and most Ontario schools.

Compare that to the U of A’s business school which was given the green light to raise tuition. At $5,100 per year, it was, like medicine, close to on par with the national average for business school tuition, but, unlike medicine, will now rise and be more comparable to some of the more expensive business programs in the country. Are business schools special?

However, post-secondary tuition could be increased on a case-by-case basis

Advanced Education Minister Doug Horner says he’s willing to consider increased tuitions for Alberta’s post-secondary programs on a case-by-case basis.

But Horner says he won’t lift the existing cap on tuition increases at the province’s colleges, universities and trade schools.

“The cap is still in place and I’ve not received any proposals from any of the institutions in the post-secondary system about any kind of changes across the board,” Horner told reporters Wednesday.

“In fact I said earlier today that across-the-board massive tuition hikes are just not in the cards.”

Tuitions were frozen in Alberta for several years before the province capped increases in 2006 based on a consumer price index formula.

Horner said there may be cases where programs are being offered at a relatively low cost, so arguments could be made to allow a significant tuition increase.

“What I have suggested to the post secondaries and to the students is if there is a valid, fair and equitable argument that is reasonable, we’re prepared to look at that,” he said.

“But it doesn’t mean there’s an automatic approval.”

The minister said so far, none of Alberta’s post-second institutions has put forward any arguments for such increases.

Horner concluded by saying that Alberta’s tuition rates are going to “stay comparable and compatible with tuition rates in the rest of the country.”

- The Canadian Press