New Alberta tuition fee policy gets mixted reviews

CHLOÉ FEDIO CUP ALBERTA AND NORTHERN BUREAU CHIEF

EDMONTON (CUP) — In February 2005, Premier Ralph Klein pledged that Alberta would have the most affordable tuition fees in the country. After 632 days of waiting, the new policy is getting mixed reviews.

The ministry plans to continue using 2004- 05 tuition fee levels as a base, Denis Herard, minister of advanced education, announced Nov. 3. Future increases will be tied to the Consumer Price Index.

Students have been paying tuition fees at the 2004-05 levels for the past two years, with the government providing rebates to institutions to buffer the cost of their fee increases.

According to Herard, there are more details to be announced that will make a more comprehensive affordability package.

“When you add up all of the initiatives that we’re undertaking for our next budget, we will be the most affordable, innovative and the best support system in the country,” he said.

Dave Cournoyer, a vice-president of the student union at the University of Alberta, said that the policy is simply “an endorsement of the status quo when it comes to the upfront cost of an education” and that the government hasn’t yet followed through on Klein’s promise.

“It’s not actually dealing with the issue of affordability for students, which is disappointing after we’ve were promised again and again that we’d be pleasantly surprised,” said Cournoyer, who is also the chair of the Council of Alberta University Students.

But Herard said that the policy does fulfill Klein’s promise and that he wants to sit down with student leaders to go over the details.

“I’m just really anxious for the students to understand that what they saw was just part of the picture and quite frankly, I don’t blame them for being somewhat disappointed because if you don’t have the whole picture, then that happens,” Herard said.

Still, not all student leaders criticized the new policy. Athabasca University’s students’ union applauded the government in a Nov. 6 press release.

The Athabasca group said it was happy to see that “universities and the government must consult with student groups — who are, after all, those most affected by the policy — before making any changes.”

Raj Pannu, NDP critic for advanced education, said that the government had already admitted tuition fee levels “were intolerably high” by freezing the fees for the past two years, and that increasing upon the 2004-05 levels was “disappointing.”

“To use that as a benchmark and start increasing the fees even beyond that makes no sense,” Pannu said. “Alberta students will be paying more in tuition fees as this new formula is implemented.”

Carl Amrhein, U of A provost, said that it’s important to keep in mind that the government has “provided all of the funding to the universities that they promised,” and that students have paid frozen rates for the past two years.

“The elected student leaders will always argue that the government could have done more — and that’s a political decision — but the government has, in Alberta, shifted a least a little bit [of] the burden back to the taxpayer and away from the student,” Amrhein said. “I think this is exciting news and certainly moving in a helpful direction.”

Amrhein said he was pleasantly surprised that the government has agreed to continue to buffer tuition fee increases that exceed CPI, which is about 3.3 per cent, for the next three years. Tuition hikes at the University of Alberta have fluctuated in recent years from six- to seven-per-cent increases.

Critics have also jumped on the affordability framework, which states that it will “adjust living allowances provided for learners receiving Alberta Student Financial Assistance to recognize current costs” and “expand learner access to student financial assistance by reducing eligibility barriers.”

Cournoyer said that access to greater financing makes it easier for students to accumulate higher debt.

“I feel this is a step in the wrong direction,” he said.

Pannu echoed these statements.

“By simply increasing the loan limits, the government has simply allowed debt loads to go up,” Pannu said. “What the government needed to do was change its financing policies to shift the focus from loans to forgivable grants upon the completion of a program.”