U of T’s Student Administrative Council (SAC) is demanding the university explain an apparent 12.3 per cent increase in the tuition revenue budget for next year.
SAC claimed the increase contravenes the five per cent limit set by the Ontario government’s rules on tuition fee hikes. The university, however, has insisted that the projected $47-million increase in tuition revenue does not violate any regulations, and that tuition fees are increasing by less that five per cent, on average.
The dispute began with a press release put out on June 27 by the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), announcing that U of T, Ryerson, and Lakehead University “appear to be” planning to increase tuition fees above the institutional limit. The release gave no hard figures, but raised the suggestion that the institutions’ are exploiting complicated provincial regulations to make tuition increases difficult to interpret.
Ontario’s “Reaching Higher” framework, unveiled in March, sets out rules for tuition increases at universities and colleges in the province. It allows different tuition increases for different programs and even years of study. For example, most Arts and Science students continuing at U of T will see fees go up by around four per cent, while students entering an Engineering program will pay eight per cent more than last year’s students. But the framework sets a five per cent cap on the average tuition increase institution-wide.
According to Marny Scully, U of T’s director of enrolment (planning and statistics), only $13.3 million out of the $47 million projection is subject to the tuition increase rules. Across 57,000 full-time domestic students, this accounts for an average increase of just over four per cent. Much of the remaining revenue comes from international students and those taking professional degrees like U of T’s Executive MBA. Neither group is regulated by Ontario’s tuition fee rules.
CFS, however, fears that the fee hike rules are murky, and open the door for effective deregulation of tuition fees. An institution’s tuition revenue budget must be based on enrolment projections, which cannot be confirmed until January of the upcoming year. Only then can the Ontario government enforce the regulations, either by lowering operating grants of offending universities, or forcing these schools to give partial refunds. Unfortunately, the first option simply reduces the quality of student education, and the tuition rules don’t give a clear understanding of which students should be reimbursed, the CFS argues.
Jesse Greener, its Ontario chairperson, said the release touched a nerve among university administrators, who he feels are not comfortable with students “prying into” universities’ budget processes.
“We’re letting them know students are watching them,” said Greener.
SAC VP External Paul Bretscher said that university administrators are being alarmingly defensive when asked to justify increased revenue from students. SAC believes the province’s tuition fee rules are not sufficiently clear and are unenforceable in practice, and has been advocating to make universities directly accountable for implementing government policy.
For his part, in the Governing Council meeting on June 29, university president David Naylor said the release was “a misinterpretation by CFS of numbers and budget statements,” calling it regrettable.
