Tuitions rise at lower rate

Manitoba below national tuition average

Chelse McKee, Staff

According to a recent survey released from Statistics Canada, although post-secondary students are paying higher tuition fees each year, the percentage of increase is declining.

The survey results were gathered from 102 post-secondary institutions this year, rather than the approximately 60 institutions that Statistics Canada has surveyed in the past.

Over the last decade, full-time undergraduate students have been paying a 4.3 per cent increase on average each year. Last year, students paid a 3.2 per cent increase, while this year students are paying an additional 2.8 per cent increase.

According to Statistics Canada, the slowing down of tuition increases is most likely due to provincial governments moving to limit tuition increases or, in other words, freezing the tuition. Despite the government’s intervening with tuition freeze, the average tuition paid by undergraduate students has risen faster than the rate of inflation as measured by the Statistics Canada consumer price index.

Tuition fees rose in six provinces for 2007-08, with the highest increases being found in New Brunswick and Quebec at 4.8 per cent. Even with the government lifting the tuition freeze after 10 years, Quebec’s tuition rates are still less than half of the national average with the Quebec student paying, on average, $2,025 annually for schooling.

In addition, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island also have tuition fees below the national average.

The highest tuition rates are found in Nova Scotia’s post-secondary institutions, in spite of the 8.5 per cent decline in fees. Another province that experienced a decline in tuition fees was Prince Edward Island with a 9.8 per cent decrease.

The average full-time undergraduate student pays $4,524; a $124 increase from last year when students paid $4,400 annually.

Undergraduate students from the faculty of medicine pay the highest tuition, owing on average $9,937 per year. They experienced a 2.9 per cent increase from last year.

As for graduate students, they experienced a smaller increase of 1.1 per cent resulting in an average tuition rate of $5,447 annually.

The studies that had the largest increases for annual tuitions were architecture and related technologies at 3.5 per cent increase and humanities and behavioral sciences, which both increased by 3.7 per cent.

The highest fees paid by graduate students are in the programs of medicine; these students pay an average $7,168 tuition annually. Business, management, and public administration graduate students pay the average sum of $13,702 for schooling annually.

Another set of fees on the rise are compulsory fees like recreation and athletics, student health services, and student associations. The fees make up, on average, 12.8 per cent of a student’s entire fees to an institution. Fees have risen 10 per cent over the last decade nationally. This year, students will pay an average of $663 in fees, whereas last year, they paid $603.

The largest increases for undergraduate department studies were engineering, which increased by 3.8 per cent, visual and performing arts and communications technologies, which experienced a 3.9 per cent increase, and physical and life sciences and technologies, which increased by 4.6 percent.

Currently, the University of Manitoba heads into its eighth year of the provincial tuition freeze.