International students, who already pay two to three times the tuition paid by local students, are going to see their tuition rise by a third over the next three years.
As approved by the SFU board of governors in the 2013/2014 Operating Budget and Financial Plan, over the next three years, undergraduate international students’ tuition fees will be raised by ten per cent each year — eight per cent more than Canadian and resident undergraduate tuition fees, which are increasing by the two per cent maximum allowed by BC government policy.
“I recognise that the university is between a rock and a hard place,” Julia Lane, coordinating and external relations officer for the Graduate Student Society, told The Peak. “Expenses are increasing all the time, space is not getting any bigger.”
Chardaye Bueckert, external relations officer for the SFSS, agreed with Lane, listing a number of expenses the university has to face: deferred maintenance, professors’ annual raises, increased operating costs, and inflation. “When you don’t receive any increased funding, it puts financial pressure on [the university].”
The issue comes from the stagnation of government funding and lack of financial support for post-secondary institutions. As explained by the administration in its operating budget and financial plan for the current academic year, “SFU has undertaken a number of cost savings initiatives over the last few years and these have largely been exhausted.” At the same time, “strong enrolment — particularly international enrolments — has helped to alleviate some of the financial pressures experienced in the past.”
A primary source of income for SFU, funding from BC’s government represents just less than half of its revenue ($218 million this year) with student fees almost matching that amount ($210 million). On the provincial government’s part, the foreseeable future for post-secondary funding looks grim: “For this upcoming year, there is going to be no increased funding for SFU, and then over the next two years there is going to be [an estimated 2.2] million dollars in cuts,” Bueckert said.
At the same time, the federal government recently set an objective to double the number of international students and researchers in Canada to 450,000 by 2022. According to British Columbia’s International Education Strategy, there were 28,000 international students attending public post-secondary institutions in BC in 2012. The government aims to add 14,000 to this number by 2016.
Despite the allocation of 25 per cent of international students’ extra tuition increase to improve international student support, it is yet unclear whether the raise in fees will hinder international enrolment.
Indeed, there is a risk that a specific population of international students is going to be hit very hard. Christa Ovenell told us that issues of cost will impact some students and their decision to choose Vancouver.
Ovenell, director and principal of Fraser International College (FIC), which offers international students a smoother path to entering SFU, added, “I do think that Vancouver and British Columbia will continue to be appealing to foreign students,” mentioning Vancouver’s healthy lifestyle and many outdoors activities, such as skiing, hiking, or going to the beaches.
According to Bueckert, the SFSS is opposed to differential fees, which only exist at the undergraduate level. “We went out in the summer to talk to the minister of advanced education, in conjunction with other student societies, and we did talk about tuition fees,” said Bueckert.
She continued, “We plan to go back over February, when the legislature starts to sit again, and we’d like to meet with the advanced education minister and MLAs,” adding that she was hoping to bring up the issue of international student tuition fees.
The SFSS is currently planning lobbying missions in addition to several sessions in Convocation Mall throughout the semester. “We plan to give information to students on various things we are working on: deferred maintenance, transit, and we hope to raise awareness about tuition increases . . . It is really hard to budget if you don’t know about those increases, so we need to educate students about that,” Bueckert said.
This is so offensive. Let’s compare with UBC tuition increases for international undergrads:
UBC………..SFU
3%———–10%
2%———–10%
2%———–10%
2%———–???
And to see that the undergrad reps are not protesting this at all! Their jobs are not to INFORM their members about how the university is taking advantage of them, their job is to ask their members what they want them to do and then PROTEST against it if that is what their members want.
That is what being a Representative means.
Just for context, UBC’s tuition for international students is currently $796/credit vs. $595/credit at SFU. So, at the end of three years, it would be as follows:
SFU: $791/unit
UBC: $853/unit
It just happens that UBC has undergone its larger % tuition increases in past years, as they were pioneers in ensuring that international students were not subsidized by the provincial government. You have to go back to 2005 to get a UBC tuition rate that is the same as SFU’s current international tuition rate. UBC was the first in the mid-90’s to move aggressively towards a cost-recovery model for international students and has gone to some fairly great lengths to ensure that international students are not subsidized by the government grants the university receives, they even calculate how much infrastructure depreciation (capital costs) are incurred per student and started charging for that as well.
If you believe in low international student fees, then UBC is not the hero of the story – they are the pioneer of ensuring international tuition fees rose to meet the cost of providing an international student a spot at the university.
it is even $720/unit right now!!