January 23, 2003 - 4:00pm
Last year, after six years of frozen tuition, Malaspina made major changes in tuition policy and increased tuition in most programs to avoid massive program cuts and staff lay-offs as a result of major budget shortfall, and announced that fees would likely rise the following year to offset increased expenditures for costs over which the institution has little control.
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Current tuition fees for academic programs are $79 per credit ($237 per course; $2,370 per year for full-time study), while students in vocational programs are paying $237 per month ($2,370 per 10-month program).
The proposed tuition plan before the Board would set basic tuition fees at $102 per credit ($306 per course; $3,060 per year for full-time study) for academic programs; and $306 per month for full-time vocational programs (3,060 for a 10-month program), or $184 per month for part-time study. This is an increase of 29%.
Fees for co-operative education programs are proposed to increase from $350 to $452 per semester for co-op placement, while fees for international students would go up from $7,800 to $8,400 per year (2 semesters). Tuition for English-as-a-Second-Language programs will stay at $3,900 per semester.
The institution is committed to the elimination of additional user fees and the Malaspina Students’ Union has made clear its objections to add-on costs. Most such fees were eliminated this year, and two remaining fees for graduation ($50) and gym usage ($20) will be eliminated in 2003-04.
The proposed tuition increases are below those announced by the University of Victoria and University of British Columbia, and it is expected that similar or higher fees will be in place at all B.C. university colleges in the next fiscal year.
Malaspina plans to create additional classes in high demand areas such as English, languages, psychology, anthropology, education and science, and will start offering a new Bachelor of Arts in Criminology and a Bachelor of Arts major in Global Studies. New minors in Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science are being contemplated in response to high student demand.
To maintain access to post-secondary education, Malaspina also plans to increase student financial assistance programs from $500,000 to $625,000, to offset the effects of tuition increases for deserving students in most financial need.
This year, the special bursary fund provided $500 each to 209 ‘high need’ students and $300 each to 320 ‘medium need’ students. The remainder was used to fund on-campus student employment programs, funding for which was previously provided by the provincial government and cut last year.
The plan also calls for continued free tuition for students who have not completed high school; however, students who are already high school graduates would be charged tuition for high school upgrading courses.
“After many years of tight budgets - mostly as a result of federal government cuts in transfer payments to the provinces that started in 1996 - exploding student demand for our programs and services, as well as rising costs, we have to look to students to share a larger portion of the full cost of their post-secondary education,” said Malaspina president Rich Johnston. “At the same time we’re committed to keeping fees below those charged at UVic, UBC and SFU.
“As an institution we’ve worked very hard at keeping tuition fees affordable by engaging in international education and contract training activities, revenues of which benefit Canadian students because we’re able to put on extra courses. This year we added 54 extra courses that we would not have been able to offer without the net revenues from these entrepreneurial activities,” he said.
“Being able to take a quality education close to home, even with higher tuition fees, is cheaper overall than having to leave the region to get this education because the largest cost of getting an education is accommodations, transportation and living costs,” Johnston added.
Malaspina’s operating budget is expected to be short $2.6-million in 2003/04 and, by legislation, post-secondary institutions are required to produce a balanced budget at the beginning of the fiscal year that starts April 1.
The shortfall is the result of unfunded inflationary costs over which the institution has little control.
The Board will give first reading to the proposed tuition plan at its February 27 meeting, and plans to make a final decision at the March 27 meeting.
Tags: In the Community
