B.C. students call on province to cool rising tuition

Students are pictured at the University of Victoria. March 29, 2022 (CTV News)

The BC Federation of Students wants the provincial government to provide more funding to the post-secondary system to bring down what it calls sky-rocketing tuition.

According to the federation, tuition fees have more than doubled since 2001. In 2000, the average fee was $2,500, while in 2019, the average was over $5,900, according to the federation.

Those rising fees, paired with the rise in inflation, is putting graduation from a college or university out of reach for many, said the student group.

That financial strain for students is then contributing to the labour shortage affecting many sectors in the province, according to the federation.

"We want institutions to be adequately funded so students don’t have to pay as much, so that their enrollment rates stay consistent," said Quinn Cunningham, secretary treasurer for the BC Federation of Students.

"[We want] people around the world see our post-secondary education system as a high-quality level of education and continue to come here to study and invest in our economy and our workforces," he said.

Cunningham said colleges and universities were hit hard during the pandemic when international student enrollment dropped off, which schools had become reliant on for the higher tuition fees they pay.

The federation says $200 million is needed to stabilize funding for post-secondary institutions.

The student group points to the 1970s when colleges and universities where publicly fund by more than 90 per cent. Public funding dropped to 80 per cent in the 80s and continued to drop to about 50 percent today.

In a statement, the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills said it recognizes the affordability challenges that students in B.C. are facing.

It added that it is taking many measures to make post-secondary education more affordable and accessible through funding and programs.

That includes:

• More than 55,000 students have received over $85 million in funding through the BC Access Grant launched in 2020 to help with costs such as tuition and living expenses.
• It has ended interest payments on student loans, saving students approximately $40 million since 2019.
• More than 7,700 student housing beds have opened or are underway, with more to come, allowing students to find affordable, on-campus housing, with plans to invest $575 million for student housing over three years and $1.1 billion over 10 years.
• The government is investing $151 million for increased student loan funding to help make education more accessible and affordable for people.
• Investments in zero-cost textbooks have saved students over $31 million.

The ministry's statement added that Budget 2023 included $1.6 billion in post-secondary education and training funding.

It also said its Tuition Limit Policy ensures tuition and fee increases remain low and predictable by maintaining a two per-cent cap on domestic tuition and mandatory fees annually at B.C.’s public post-secondary institutions.

Lastly, the province said it "will keep working with students to continue to make post-secondary education more affordable in British Columbia."