Ontario's tuition heating up, so is debate

A 4.5 per cent increase greets students

ADRIAN MA CUP ONTARIO BUREAU CHIEF

WATERLOO (CUP) — Tuition fees in Ontario have increased for the first time in two years. Almost all universities have elected to raise tuition by 4.5 per cent for incoming first-year students, and by four per cent for returning undergraduate students. This is below the 2006 government maximum of five per cent.

Students in a first-year program at York University, for example, will be paying $188 more than first-year students in 2005-06 — a 4.5 per cent increase. A four per cent increase for York’s upper-year students will see them paying $167 more than last year.

Exceptions to this trend include Brock University and Laurentian University, as both schools have increased tuition by four per cent for all undergraduate students.

Students entering graduate programs will have to pay between four and eight per cent more, although a handful of universities (Carleton, Queen’s and York) have declined to raise tuition fees for most, if not all, of their graduate programs.

Special and professional programs like engineering and law have been tagged with increases between six and eight per cent.

In March 2006, the McGuinty Liberal government announced that Ontario colleges and universities would be able to raise tuition rates an average of five per cent at the beginning of this year’s fall semester. This new tuition framework is part of the government’s larger, multi-year education plan dubbed the “Reaching Higher Plan.”

The Reaching Higher Plan includes efforts to expand student grants and update books and supplies allowances.

Chris Bentley, Ontario’s minister of colleges and universities, has said that the fee increases are tied to improving the quality of postsecondary education and also to making education more accessible for Ontario students.

“To achieve our goal, we need an additional contribution from students,” said Bentley in a media release. “For every $3 extra Ontario invests under Reaching Higher in post-secondary education, we are asking students to contribute $1.”

Jesse Greener, chairperson for the Ontario branch of the Canadian Federation of Students, said that Bentley’s statements are somewhat “misleading.”

“The money that the government is referring to, in terms of funding, was money already committed in the 2005-06 budget,” Greener said, noting that a significant amount of money the province puts towards its funding is federal money allocated by the Canada-Ontario Agreements of 2005.

“We have federal funding and more than enough in the provincial government to freeze tuition rates,” said Greener. “Students and families are bottomless pits of money to the provincial government and school administrations.”