The Carleton Board of Governors (BoG) 2016-17 budget was approved this past April, and it features an increase in tuition fees by three per cent—the full maximum increase permitted by the Ontario government. The Board largely attributed this increase to inflation costs.
According to Duncan Watt, the vice-president (finance and administration) at Carleton, a rise in tuition fees is necessary for the university in correlation with a rise in inflation, which dictates the prices of goods and services in the marketplace, including salaries of staff at Carleton.
“Salaries are going up, utilities are going up, costs of library books are going up,” Watt said. “What would be required for [tuition fees not to rise] would be a provincial government funding framework where the province actually compensated universities for inflationary costs in another way.”
With the provincial government’s current framework, Watt said, universities are left to manage inflation costs through either increased tuition or increased enrolment.
This year, a three and a half per cent decline in high school graduates in 2015-16 means that Carleton anticipates a decrease of nearly 100 students from its 2016-17 enrolment numbers. Watt said this means tuition needs to be raised by the maximum amount permitted by the government, three per cent for domestic undergraduate students, in order to meet the financial needs of the university.
Aside from the rise in tuition fees, however, Watt said this anticipated decrease in enrolment may not affect the Carleton student population much, if at all.
“We’re still forecasting that our total number of undergraduates will increase slightly,” he said, as last year’s new enrollment was projected at 6,100, but Carleton ended up with 6,234 new undergraduates.
Fahd Alhattab, president of the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) said he believes there are other options the university hasn’t explored when it comes to raising tuition fees. He said CUSA is “completely against” the rise in fees.
“We think that between all the sources of revenue that the university has,” he said, “there’s definitely better options for them to find and ensure that tuition isn’t being increased by the maximum amount each year, and that they don’t have to cut services to make that happen.”
Alhattab added that CUSA abstained from the vote to raise tuition fees, saying this was because they were given the option to either raise the fees, or cut services for students. He said neither was a feasible option for students.
“The university has some ambitious plans with whether it’s increasing recruitment, or increasing its reputation, whether it’s across the province or across Canada—it’s fantastic,” he said, “however, it shouldn’t come at the cost off students’ backs.”
Instead of placing blame solely on the university, however, Alhattab said he recognizes the provincial government has a part to play in this as well. He said CUSA will “do some advocacy on Queen’s Park in regards to students here in Ontario about finding more solutions for more accessible education to our students.”
“I think there’s quite a bit of an issue there, regarding tuition,” he said. “We’re obviously not happy with the university’s decision, but we have to find a holistic approach to how we can actually improve that.”
Carleton’s 2016-17 Operating Budget Notes can be found on the Carleton website here.
