Supplied - Truckee Meadows Community CollegeNote: Andrea DeKeseredy is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology and a member of the Graduate Students’ Association Board.
The United Conservative Party (UCP) imposed a cap on tuition increases at two per cent in 2024. However, the University of Alberta can still increase tuition through the loophole of “exceptional tuition increases” (ETIs). These allow the U of A to raise tuition by more than two per cent, sometimes by over 100 per cent, in specific programs so long as they receive approval from the government. This year, the Board of Governors (BoG) approved the proposal of a 75 per cent tuition increase in the country’s top-ranked nursing program for course-based and thesis-based master’s programs. The proposed hike undermines the principles of nursing education. It will also make it more challenging for the program to maintain its number one ranking.
The discipline of nursing, in both academic and clinical environments, is rooted in an unwavering commitment to equity. A core value of the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) is a pledge of “transforming embedded systems of inequality and oppression.” This undertaking begins through nursing education. The U of A nursing department states that they are committed to recognizing “the importance of equity at all levels: employment, education, and delivery of care to our patients.” A 75 per cent increase in tuition is in direct opposition to these values, and impacts students from low-income backgrounds even more.
Canadian research overwhelmingly shows that increased tuition leads to barriers to access for low-income and racialized students. A 2025 report by the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions found that over a quarter of nursing students say they have considered leaving their programs because of the cost. Most students must take out loans to finance their education. Here at the U of A, the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) released a cost of living survey where more than half of respondents stated that even a 10 per cent tuition increase would threaten their ability to meet their basic needs. This includes their ability to buy food. The university has said in the past that it will reinvest increased tuition into student supports. However, the GSA report describes graduate students living in pest-infested, overcrowded housing with no heat.
The GSA is against the increases. Undergraduate students, many of whom will undoubtedly be priced out of the graduate nursing program, have also expressed concern. The university has offered little information or concrete examples of how it will use a 75 per cent tuition increase. It has vaguely said the increase will go towards enhanced student services, Indigenous initiatives, and technology enhancements. We also do not know how the university arrived at that percentage. Promising to enhance student services feels hollow when they continue to slash these while tuition is increased every year. They have also argued that higher tuition is necessary to maintain the nursing program’s number one ranking, but it is likely the increase will have the opposite effect.
Let’s look at the number two ranked nursing program in the country, the University of British Columbia. According to their website, Canadian citizens and permanent residents will pay around $5,626.02 a year in tuition for their Master of Science in Nursing program. Currently, the course-based master’s tuition at the U of A is comparable at $5,700 for the first year. If the Ministry of Advanced Education approves the ETIs, tuition at the U of A will rise to $9,975 a year. Not only will the nursing program have betrayed their commitment to equity, but it stands to lose their strongest applicants to universities that offer competing programs with more student services at lower cost.
The university proposed the tuition increase itself but when asked about them at a recent tuition town hall, they passed responsibility to the government. They stressed that the proposal has “only been submitted to the government, not approved.” It now moves to the desk of the Minister of Advanced Education, whose government continues to grapple with a shortage of health-care workers across multiple fields of nursing. Given the ongoing lack of nurse educators in Canada, the government and the university should be working together to make graduate nursing education as widely accessible as possible in Alberta.
Nursing education and practice is based on a commitment to equity, especially at the U of A. Despite this, and research that shows high tuition creates barriers for low-income students, the administration continues to defend their 75 per cent increase in graduate nursing tuition as something that will benefit the students. The hike is in direct opposition to the core values of nursing education. It will also likely push the strongest applicants to competing Canadian programs. All of this comes at a time when Alberta is in need of retaining health-care professionals at all levels.
Perhaps the U of A’s nursing program ranks first in the country because cost did not drive students’ decisions to enroll.
