Alberta extends post-secondary tuition and fee freeze

A tuition and fee freeze at Alberta’s public post-secondary institutes will continue into a fourth year, with the government committing up to $17 million in backfill payments to compensate for the inability of universities and colleges to raise more tuition revenue.

Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt said Thursday the freeze applies to 20 public postsecondary institutions and will apply to apprenticeship tuition.

It will not apply to six private institutions.

Existing mandatory non-instructional fees will also continue to be frozen at all 26 post-secondary institutions and no new fees can be introduced or implemented in 2018-19.

International student tuition will again not be covered in the freeze and that is a major concern for many student groups across the province. Following a similar announcement in October 2016, in which universities didn’t receive backfill, the University of Alberta and MacEwan University both increased international fees.

In December, the U of A increased international tuition by 3.02 per cent and MacEwan increased its by 15 per cent over two academic years. At the time, both universities defended the increases.

The U of A said its increase was to bring its programming costs in line with other international programs across the country while MacEwan said it would use revenue generated by the increase to, in part, help support its own students studying abroad.

Willem Klumpenhouwer, chairman of the Alberta Graduate Provincial Advocacy Council, said Thursday he is worried “some institutions will use international student fees as a lever to make up for any shortfalls.” He also raised concerns that even with backfill, the quality of education being offered could be adversely affected because of cuts to programs or support.

“We are hoping that universities will take the initiative and freeze international student tuition,” he said.

U of A students’ union president Marina Banister added “international students still feel that they have been forgotten.”

“International students have been left out of the equation,” she said in a news release.

Schmidt said foreign tuition was not considered in this latest freeze, but will be included in the government’s tuition and fee policy early next year.

The decision to backfill universities for the 2018-19 academic year is in direct contrast to the government’s decision to not offer universities the same compensation in the previous academic year. Out of the four years of freezes, the 201718 academic year was the only one in which universities didn’t receive backfill funding.

When it first froze tuition in 2015, the government backfilled universities to the tune of $16 million and added another $22 million to cover the cost of rolling back market modifier increases set in 2014, which let institutions increase tuition fees above the rate of the Consumer Price Index.

Schmidt wouldn’t say exactly where the $17 million had come from except to say “last year the money was not available” and “there are some changes to our overall fiscal picture.”

He said where the money came from would be revealed in the new year when the government finalizes and unveils its tuition policy and funding allocation policy.

He also downplayed the relatively subdued announcement compared to previous years, despite its positive impact on thousands of students across the province. Schmidt made the same announcement later in the day in Calgary.

“I think that today the government has a lot of important things we are talking about,” he said.

“It’s the Three Stooges effect — we are trying to get all the people through the door at the same time.”

Schmidt said university tuition in Alberta is now lower than the Canadian average and that a university student taking a four-year degree can expect to pay $1,500 less over the entirety of their study because of the freeze.