Tuition frozen for one more year

But fees will increase by 10 per cent beginning in 2009

Tessa Vanderhart, Staff

The tuition fee freeze will continue for 2008-09, but, beginning in September 2009, tuition will begin a legislated 10 per cent increase.

“We decided to keep the tuition freeze for a year because we think it’s important that students have a transition year to understand what their tuition is going to be,” said Province of Manitoba’s Advanced Education Minister Diane McGifford.

Just how the freeze is lifted will depend on the recommendations of a one-person commission that will be mandated to look at the government’s tuition fee policy from all directions, McGifford said.

“I think it’s really important that we have someone that’s not in government’s court, they’re not in the universities’ court, they’re not in the students’ court — and I don’t mean to suggest that our aims are all very different, in fact we want the same thing but sometimes we go about it different ways.”

The Doer government froze the tuition fees in 2000. At the same time, tuition fees were reduced by 10 per cent, back to the 1999 level, through a grant passed on to each student.

The grant will be maintained, according to McGifford, allowing the university to keep an additional $27 million per year.

Over the next three years, provincial funding for bursaries will double, up from $8 million to $16 million. A new bursary will be added in 2009 to assist rural and northern students in relocating to pursue post-secondary education.

“We realize it’s costly to go to university; it’s not just the living costs,” McGifford said. She explained that the bursaries for rural and northern students are intended to supplement access programs already in place.

The operating grant to universities was increased by seven per cent — a two per cent increase over the expected increase of five per cent. McGifford said that this increase is equivalent to a six per cent increase in tuition.

A 6.7 per cent increase was provided in the 2007-08 academic year.

UMSU president Garry Sran questioned whether the increase is enough.

“University presidents have shown a propensity for being broke at the end of the year, no matter how much funding they get, while simultaneously finding millions to spend on pet projects like staircases or front lawns. Our bigger concern is why universities are spending money on public relations and hiring administrators while, at the same time, not improving labs, and classrooms and hiring more faculty, TAs, etc. University administrators also provide no accounting of where their funding goes: it’s just a mysterious black hole. They refuse to provide information to Board of Governors members or to the public through freedom of information requests.” 

Sran went on to say, “I think before we have a discussion about what an adequate level of funding is, we need to have an honest discussion with university administrators about where the money they have is going. This year, staff and faculty are getting only 2.5 per cent raises, while the university is getting a seven per cent funding increase and crying broke. Something doesn’t add up, and perhaps it’s time for the government to start looking into this.”

John Danakas, director of public affairs for the university, said the university welcomes the funding increase, but it falls short of the increase the university requested from the Council on Post-Secondary Education.

“The university is encouraged by the province’s acknowledgment of the need for additional funding for post-secondary education. Today’s announcement is certainly a step in the right direction. The tuition freeze has presented challenges to the university in terms of dealing with funding issues and has made it difficult for the university to remain competitive nationally and to offer students in Manitoba the highest possible quality education,” Danakas said.

Since 1999, the faculties of Law, Dentistry, Pharmacy and Engineering have voted to increase their tuition fees.

An additional $465 in ancillary fees has been added to Manitoba university students’ tuition since 1999. In addition, in 2007, U of M instituted $30 laboratory fees. Tuition for international students was deregulated in 2002, and currently a 180 per cent differential fee is charged to international students on top of tuition.

Matthew Derksen, an architecture master’s student, said, “As a student, yeah, cool, I’m probably saving $100 or something. But in the long term, is it good for the university? I don’t know.”