According to Statistics Canada, undergraduate students in Ontario pay the highest average tuition fees in the country. Students at Carleton who struggle with their mental health pay even more.
At Carleton, students pay full tuition if they’re considered a full-time student, whether they take four, five, or six courses per semester. Depending on their degree, this amount is typically $7,000—9,000.
However, for part-time students taking three courses or less, tuition is calculated on a per-credit basis, at typically $650—950 per half-credit course. This means that someone who is taking four courses, which is less than the standard five course load, is paying the same amount as someone who is overloading at six courses. They’ll also end up paying for extra semesters to make up for the credits they missed.
Therefore, the student taking five or six courses a semester is essentially getting free classes, while the student taking four courses is paying for additional classes even if they’ve taken the same number of courses by the end of their degree.
Even at face value, it’s a raw deal. It disadvantages students who work part time to afford tuition or those who are raising children and find it more manageable to take four courses.
What bothers me even more is what this says about how much we care about students’ mental health. Due to mental illness, I took four courses per semester during my first year because I was too overwhelmed to take any more. I paid the same amount as anyone who took five courses, but then I also paid for a summer semester for the credits I was behind in.
I know that I will likely never be able to handle a full course load, but I also know that not having the mental health capacity to do so is costing me a lot more money than if I did.
Understandably, you may be thinking that the answer is to just be a part-time student and pay per credit, but for many students, this isn’t how it works. Many start the semester off with a standard five courses and only drop a course or two later on, once they become overwhelmed, and once the deadline for dropping courses and receiving financial adjustment has passed.
Unfortunately, mental health and distress don’t follow arbitrary deadlines.
So again, what does this policy say about the way we value mental health? Are we financially punishing and taking advantage of students who have to take reduced course loads in order to take care of their mental health? Are we discriminating against them by making the cost of education higher for them than for others who can maintain five or more courses a semester?
We talk a lot about stigma these days, and I can say confidently that I feel stigmatized by this policy. For the same price I’m paying now, I could be getting a full credit more each semester if I could take six courses—but I can’t. As long as I am too depressed, anxious, or suicidal to take any more than four courses a semester, the school continues to make more money from me than from other students.
How can we go around telling students to take care of their mental health when we are literally making some of them pay more for doing so?
Perhaps tuition should always be charged on a per-credit basis, regardless of full- or part-time status, or perhaps we should only pay tuition for the credits we actually complete. Maybe there’s another solution, but I think it’s wrong for a school to claim it cares about student mental health when, in practice, it clearly cares more about our money.
