- Cherise Letson — CUP Atlantic Bureau Chief
- in Atlantic, News
(Graphic by Alex Walsh/The Brunswickan)
FREDERICTON (CUP) — According to the latest numbers compiled by the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission, tuition in the Maritimes is outpacing inflation, which was at 1.3 per cent during July.
In New Brunswick, all universities experienced a maximum of a 3.67 per cent increase from last year, except for St. Thomas University, which experienced an 8.78 per cent jump. Though the provincial government has set a tuition cap of $150, St. Thomas University ignored the cap in order to balance their budget. The school was able to ignore the tuition cap because it’s policy and not law.
Pat Joyce, executive director of the New Brunswick Student Alliance, said tuition increases can be positive if students were involved in the decision making and if they improve both quality and services for students. However, he said that wasn’t the case with St. Thomas.
“I think the main challenge that we see happening at St. Thomas is that there was a perceived necessity from the university to increase that tuition fee and that necessity was perhaps not shared from students,” Joyce said.
“I think that’s the underlying problem at St. Thomas when it comes to them going beyond that regulation, is not only are they increasing their fees beyond what government has recommended, but student’s haven’t seen the benefit of that.”
Though Joyce said he is happy that there’s a tuition cap, tuition increases of any amount are still concerning for students.
“Obviously the increase in costs will have an effect on students when it comes to affordability. It will affect their ability to enjoy a high quality of life while at university. It’s certainly concerning for us,” he said. “We think there are a lot of different options on the table when it comes to how to minimize the impact of tuition increases on students.”
Joyce said there are some financial aid programs in New Brunswick that can use more funding and some programs that need to be evaluated. He said financial aid is a good way to offset increases because it can help students with other school-related costs.
“The good thing about financial aid is that not only does it fund increased costs related tuition and ancillary fees, but also helps students pay for cost of living, food and text books,” Joyce said.
“We’ve advocated for more money to be available for students through the student financial aid program so students can save more money when they work during the summer and during the school year as well.”
In Nova Scotia, tuition increases were relatively the same across the board, with with the Nova Scotia College of Craft and Design experiencing a 2.88 per cent increase and St. Mary’s University getting a 3.04 per cent increase. The reason for the consistency is because the provincial government has capped tuition increases at three per cent.
The University of Prince Edward Island experienced a 4.08 per cent increase, pushing tuition up from $5,150 to $5,360.
Anastasia Smallwood, University of Prince Edward Island Student Union president, said the reason for the increase was because of cuts to the government operating grants and inflation.
“As a student, it’s not easy to see tuition increase at all . . . I think the four per cent increase is manageable for our students, but in the end no increase would have been ideal,” Smallwood said. “But I think it could have been a lot worse.”
Smallwood said this year UPEISU are creating lobbying documents to help change their relationship with the provincial government. UPEISU is the only student union in the province that actively lobbies the government.
“We’ve got a couple of internal and external policies we made over the summer that we will be lobbying the government for,” she said.
“I think that now that we have these documents created, I think it will be more of an action based, a more ask-based relationship with the government, which is great for our students.”
Smallwood said though money is tight everywhere these days, putting costs on the backs of students is not the way to go.
“I think it’s important to consider that students are working to pay for their tuition and they’re relying on student loans, and that any increase to tuition is not ideal,” she said.