The New Brunswick provincial government has pressed the defrost button on a three-year tuition freeze.
According to the New Brunswick Student Alliance (NBSA), the potential $200 increase, announced by Finance Minister Blaine Higgs March 22, won’t be sufficiently compensated by grants.
With the new budget, institutions can increase tuition by up to $200, but will also receive a 2 per cent increase in funding for operational costs, according to a ministry press release.
“[Operational grants] shouldn’t be balancing tuition. It sets a dangerous precedent,” NBSA president Samuel Gregg-Wallace said.
“It may seem like pennies in tuition . . . but this is coupled with a much bigger problem” Wallace said.
He said these grants do not keep up with inflation and the cost of education should not be shifted on to students.
“Concessions had to be made all across the board,” said New Brunswick ministry of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour communications officer Matt Jones. He stressed the cap increase did not mean universities and colleges will certainly increase tuition, although it is likely.
Jones said he could not comment on the possibility of further fee cap increases, but there will be more bursaries targeting low-income students.
He said there is not information on the impact on out-of-province and international students until the budget estimates are released.
Budget cuts had to be made because of the $1-billion provincial deficit from the spending trends over the past four years, according to a news release from Higgs’ office.
"Our government has inherited a spending mess that cannot be fixed overnight. We are developing a plan to return to balanced budgets within our mandate and to encourage a growing, vibrant economy," Higgs said in the release.
Former premier Shawn Graham said he had put the tuition freeze in place for the last three years while he was in office to bring tuition more in line with the national average.
“While it was in place would also increase funding to the university so there would not be a corresponding cutback on services at the same time,” he said.
Graham said he is concerned about the end of the tuition freeze and another initiatives he had introduced which assessed student loan eligibility on their income alone but will now include their parents’ income.
Shannon Carmont-McKinley, president of the University of New Brunswick Student Association, said the end of the fee freeze is another blow to students who had rallied and voiced their concerns leading up to the budget announcement.
“We’re already the second highest tuition in Canada,” Carmont-McKinley said, “New Brunswick moved away from student funding… Now, New Brunswick is taking a step backwards.”