The Carleton Board of Governors (BoG) voted on Feb. 2 to raise the cost of tuition at the university by the maximum allowable amount for the next two academic years.
The three per cent average annual increase means the tuition cost of some programs will go up less, but others will go up more.
Under the plan approved by the BoG, domestic annual tuition rates will increase by three per cent in the 2017-18 year and the 2018-19 school year, respectively. Fees for international students will increase three to eight per cent in each school year.
Fahd Alhattab and Greg Owens, the two undergraduate student representatives, along with Michael Bueckert, the graduate student representative, were the only members on the BoG to vote against the hikes.
According to Michel Piché, Carleton vice-president (finance and administration), tuition fees need to be raised each year because staff salaries and benefits also go up each year. He said tuition fees account for 58 per cent of the university’s yearly revenue, while salaries make up 52 per cent of the university’s operating budget.
Another reason for increasing tuition fees is changes to how the provincial government will fund post-secondary institutions. According to Piché, the government will be giving colleges and universities fixed grants, rather than funding new growth. He said demographics in the province are changing, and the next few years will see fewer Ontario students entering first-year university.
“By 2021-22, revenue will barely cover base expenses, leaving no funds for new academic programs, student aid, capital projects and other contingencies,” Piché said. “To help offset these increasing costs, Carleton is continuing to look at ways to improve efficiencies in operations through its office of quality initiatives.”
Bueckert asked why the university’s surplus couldn’t be used to fund the university, as opposed to raising tuition fees.
Piché responded by saying that it would be akin to paying for a house’s mortgage with a savings account, and is not a long term solution.
Alhattab abstained on the vote to increase tuition last year, but he said he voted against it this year because Carleton has not been doing enough to fight the rising cost of tuition in the province.
At the meeting, however, Carleton President Roseann Runte said Carleton is part of a coalition of universities that will be lobbying the provincial government on the high cost of tuition in the province.
She said there “has to be a public recognition” of the fact that university tuition is high in Ontario before the government can be lobbied and change can be made.
The decision was made at the Board’s first meeting of 2017, which also saw protests outside Richcraft Hall where the meeting took place.
The protest was against the vote to increase tuition fees and for changes to be made the Sexual Violence Policy that the BoG approved in December 2016, according to Jenna Amirault, the Carleton Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) vice-president (external).
“We protested the last Board of Governors meeting,” she said. “I hope the protests keep getting bigger and larger and that we can actually get a seat to sit and meet with the board so that they will hear our concerns. Right now we haven’t really been successful in that.”
– Photo by Trevor Swann
