Ministry of Advanced Education willing to consider tuition hikes

Kelsey Tanasiuk

COAST-TO-COST Alberta falls near the middle of the pack when it comes to average annual tuition rates.

With cranes and construction crews a common sight around campus, University of Alberta students are constantly reminded of the money the University is pouring into improvements. As President Indira Samarasekera noted in her town hall meeting on October 19, this has helped the University to achieve 59th place on the Times Higher Education rankings. But while placing 59th worldwide, the U of A must also deal with a $59-million budget shortfall.

For the 2010/11 operating budget, the U of A has planned to spend $59 million more than they actually have available. To fix this budgeting oversight, Samarasekera explained that the University has targeted three measures that will be considered in a balanced approach: increase revenues from students, “achieve administrative and program efficiencies across the institution,” and “moderate the rate of increase in faculty and staff salary and benefit costs.”

It was later revealed that the "balanced" approach would mean that undergraduate tuition would be raised in certain faculties — in some cases, dramatically — with the goal of raising $20 million extra in revenue to plug the hole in the budget. While some faculties such as Arts and Science seem to get by relatively unscathed, Pharmacy students are facing a proposed increase of 66 per cent.

While Pharmacy is the hardest hit, the U of A is coming to the government with a number of other steep proposed increases. Tuition could increase by 39 per cent for Business ($2,000 per year), 35 per cent for Engineering ($2,040 per year), 35 per cent for Medicine ($4,000 per year), 32 per cent for Law ($3,151 per year), 21 percent for Dentistry ($4,000 per year), and three per cent for Economics, Design students in the Faculty of Arts, as well as Nutrition and Food Sciences in Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences ($150 per year).

If this seems unusual, it is — since 2006, tuition increases have been tied to the Canadian Price Index. CPI takes the cost of buying certain goods in one year and compares that to the cost of buying the same goods the next year, averaging the increase as a percentage. Following CPI increases allows tuition modification to be low, tied to actual market pressures, and predictable when compared to other yearly increases.

Students' Union Vice President (External) Beverly Eastham and Chair of the Council of Alberta University Students, explained that if tuition was to follow CPI this next year, the increase would be fairly reasonable at only about 1.5 per cent.

“Tuition increasing by CPI is something that CAUS supports,” Eastham explained.

She also noted that student support for tying tuition to CPI was not, from the outset, unconditional.

“We’ve also maintained that the base rate of tuition that CPI started to take effect on was actually too high. So this is the first time that we’ve seen our institution come out and say that it was actually too low, and that there’s no opportunity for discussion and they’d like to use the market modifiers to raise that base level of tuition up to where they think it should be.”

While the University is focused on raising tuition to balance their books, to get around the CPI caps the University needs to get the increases approved by the province. To do so, the University needs to convince the provincial government that the tuition levels were too low when CPI was originally tied to tuition — adopting a position that directly contradicts that of CAUS. According to Doug Horner, Alberta’s Minister of Advanced Education and Technology, with the U of A’s back against the wall and an impending large deficit on the horizon, he may be open to allowing the tuition increases — but only if the University demonstrates reasonable proposals.

“What I’m looking at doing is protecting the CPI. I think that’s more important to the overall group of students than a ‘market modifier’ that actually creates fairness in the system,” Horner elaborated.

“So when you say to me ‘you’re going to raise tuition,’ I go right back to you and say ‘we’re in a very tough situation here, and I want the University to come out of it in a positive way, and I’m prepared to look at fair and reasonable proposals.’ But I’m not prepared to say that the CPI cap is going to be removed.”

Should the U of A face difficulties in getting the increases approved, the burden may be distributed more evenly using increased mandatory non-instructional fees for all students. On average, an additional $500 would be required from each student to make up the $20 million.

“That’s entirely up to [schools]. We don’t set those. We didn’t put a cap in on user fees,” Horner said.

Horner explained that when the CPI cap was imposed in 2006 — and tuition was rolled back to 2004 levels — one thing that was missed was "looking at tuition as it relates to fairness." Fairness, as defined by the government, relates to a student’s ability to take the investment of their education and then turn around and recoup that investment in the economy. The graduates of some faculties will make more out of school than others, and for tuition to be "fair," it should reflect this.

“When you look at the overall package of affordability for our students, we actually come out pretty well. And certainly when you talk about the quality of our institutions, I would say that the investments that the students are making, and the government, is part of the reason why we have the quality," Horner said. "Remember, you’re only talking 20–25 per cent of the cost of providing that education is actually born by the student. That’s a pretty darn good investment by both sides.”

Horner said he will consider any tuition hike proposals, but still reserves judgment on approving anything.

“We’ll look at all ideas to lower costs or to raise revenue outside of tuition and other areas. We’ll look at everything," he said. "[Is the U of A] going to go ahead and do across the board with all their tuitions? The answer is no; we won’t let them.”

However, as Eastham pointed out, the University is on shaky ground if they attempt to argue that general tuition at the U of A ranks low on a national scale.

“Alberta is the third highest tuition in Canada, and from that number, the University of Alberta is a little bit lower,” Eastham stated.

Furthermore, the "Alberta Advantage" seems to have left many students behind this past summer. While the cost of living and the cost of tuition are higher than average in Alberta, the economic downturn made it harder for students to find employment. With tuition to raise and debts to pay off, Eastham expects students will face difficulties concentrating on their school work.

“The massive unemployment rates we saw this summer probably mean more students than usual are having to work second and third jobs if they can find them during the school year, or trying to find other ways of making money to pay for their education. It takes away from the amount of time that they’re able to spend on campus devoted to their academic life.”