Students hope ministry will review all new college fees
Student leaders hope the government will review proposed fee increases at colleges and universities that appear to have been an attempt to bypass the two-per-cent tuition cap. On Thursday, the NDP charged that the province’s post-secondary schools were are being allowed to charge students hundreds of extra dollars in new fees, while keeping tuition fees within the two-per-cent cap. By Friday morning, the Ministry of Advanced Education wrote a letter to all post-secondary institution presidents, “to provide clarification” about fees. “Tuition and fees for existing programs and services must not increase more than two per cent per year,” the letter states. “New mandatory fees may be introduced for new services if there is a clear benefit to students.” Documents provided by the NDP show that North Island College president John Bowman wrote in a newsletter that “ … the ministry advised B.C.’s colleges they had a new interpretation of the Tuition Limit Policy, which enables institutions to implement mandatory student fees.” The documents also show a letter written by the chairperson of the students union of Vancouver Community College that says a college vice-president told the tuition and fees committee that “proposals to increase and implement new fees were being made based on direction from the Ministry of Advanced Education.” Earlier this month, the Canadian Federation of Students-BC said that at least five schools had proposed new fees that were outside of the two-per-cent cap, including one for $2,000 for a new lab fee for Pharmacy Tech students and a $26 per term student fee for all students at Vancouver Community College, a $5 per-credit learner resource fee at North Island College and a $6.27 per credit student services fee at Vancouver Island University. “Our hope would be that the ministry would review, on a case-by-case basis these fees and see what the money is going for,” said Jenelle Davies, Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Federation of Students-BC. Davies said if there’s nothing new and there are no changes to a curriculum, but fees are going up, “that’s a tuition fee increase, but you know you can’t put through a tuition fee increase, so you’re just implementing a new fee to make the difference up.” Advanced Education Minister Andrew Wilkinson said on Thursday that his ministry would be closely monitoring the fees to make sure the tuition cap is respected. “We will be looking at all of the fees to make sure that they are giving a new, clear benefit to students because the fees are not permissible for an existing program with an existing cost structure with an existing fee arrangement,” Wilkinson said. “It has to be a new benefit to students to justify a new fee.”
