Rising tuition fees are a slap to the face

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international tuition - Andrew ZulianiSFU, I hate your ridiculous international school fees!

SFU is yet again increasing tuition fees by an additional eight per cent, on top of the already basic two per cent increase per annum. I am not the only one growling at this injustice. As an international student, I already pay $595 per credit, almost four times the amount locals pay. SFU wants to increase that by another ten per cent each coming year? Pardon me while I scoff. And curl up in a corner.

But it isn’t just SFU. According to Statistics Canada, in 2013 fee increases for undergraduate international students ranged from 1.4 per cent in Alberta to 10.1 per cent in Ontario. Graduate fee increases were a tad bit better, ranging from 1.6 per cent in Manitoba to 6.7 per cent in Saskatchewan. But the trend appears to only be going up.

International students hang on to their existence in Canada by a thread; the only reason most of us are allowed to stay is because of a piece of paper permitting us to study here (terms and conditions apply). If we dislike our school fees, we can’t do anything but take it, or leave Canada. Honestly, what’s to stop a school from increasing international fees other than sheer conscience?

If our tuition fees really increase by 30 per cent over the next three years, international students will get fed up. Current students might have no choice but to finish our degrees to make sure all the money we’ve forked out so far gets us at least something in the end. Future students, though, will hopefully think twice about applying to SFU, and even other Canadian institutions. You can only push us so far before we push back.

Maybe Canadian universities think that they can raise our school fees because of the demand for Canadian education from international students, but exponentially capitalizing on this opportunity means that you are exploiting us.

If tuition fees were actually affordable, I would take classes left, right, and center. There are so many interesting, stimulating classes that I want to take but can’t because I don’t want to stretch my resources even more by going over the 120 credits needed to graduate. What happened to the spirit of education? We’ve lost it to the profiteering ways of business.

I like my experience in Canada enough. I just don’t think it has to come at such a high price.

2 COMMENTS

  1. I’m also an international student and my tuition from 2010 was around 527/credit. Now its 595 plus 10% each year I dont graduate. It makes me upset that they increase tuition with very little communication and transparency. At least tell me why I’m suddenly paying more? What’s more baffling is that most international students dont seem to care??

  2. It is $741/unit for (engineering) right now!! I will probably quit the school because I cannot pay that increased tuition anymore compared to the $595/unit before when I first time to come here!

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