{"id":37731,"date":"2017-12-07T11:21:02","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T18:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/?p=37731"},"modified":"2017-12-07T11:21:02","modified_gmt":"2017-12-07T18:21:02","slug":"tuition-freeze-is-fine-student-groups-say-but-what-happens-when-the-thaw-hits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/2017\/12\/07\/tuition-freeze-is-fine-student-groups-say-but-what-happens-when-the-thaw-hits\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuition freeze is fine, student groups say, but what happens when the thaw hits?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Frozen Fees: <\/strong>Students in the Stan Grad building walk to class from lunch on SAIT Campus in Calgary on Monday, Sept. 25, 2017. The extended tuition freeze in Alberta has student groups’ concerned for the future of student tuition. (Photo by Rachel Moerschfelder\/SAIT)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

S<\/span>AIT students who are enjoying the government’s extended tuition freeze<\/a> could be in for a shock, once the situation changes.<\/p>\n

W<\/span>hile the Notley government has announced that tuition at Alberta post-secondary institutions will capped again next year, sooner or later that limit will be lifted.<\/p>\n

And that has some student groups and institutions on the province worried that tuition could then increase sharply.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel that (the tuition freeze) is good for right now,\u201d Alex Dimopoulos, president of the SAIT students association, said prior to the latest government announcement.<\/p>\n

The challenge will be to ensure that tuition doesn’t increase drastically once the freeze melts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a concern because…we don\u2019t know what kind of solutions they are looking into,\u201d said Marlene Morin, the executive director of the Alberta Students Executive Council (ASEC), in an interview prior to the latest announcement.<\/p>\n

With a history of budget cuts in the Advanced Education sector made by the former Progressive Conservative government in Alberta, the NDP\u2019s tuition freeze is a new situation for Albertans.<\/p>\n

That has student groups looking at what has happened in other provinces to get an idea of what may happen here.<\/p>\n

In B.C., tuition increased by more than 25 per cent over the span of two years after a five-year tuition freeze was introduced in 1996.<\/p>\n

After a four-year tuition freeze was lifted in Saskatchewan in 2009, tuition went up by 10 per cent over the next three years.<\/p>\n

The Alberta government has taken steps to lighten the financial impact of the freeze on post-secondary institutions.<\/p>\n

When the government introduced a two-year tuition freeze in 2015, it allocated $16 million to fund the institutions affected, who were unable to raise tuition despite continued increases in their operating costs.<\/p>\n

The University of Calgary expected to lose $2 million-$4 million due to the freeze, despite the \u201cbackfill\u201d money the government provided.<\/p>\n

No additional funding was allocated to institutions for the third year of the freeze, but Advanced Education announced Dec. 7 that more cash would be available to institutions for next year.<\/p>\n

The government also announced that next year, it would begin looking a more predictable and sustainable ways of funding the institutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cASEC has been lobbying to see predictable and affordable increases in tuition,\u201d said Morin.<\/p>\n

The Caucus of Alberta University Students\u2019 (CAUS) expressed concern about the future after the freeze in its 2017 Budget Submission<\/a>, stating \u201cdespite the certainty given for the next year, students are not yet able to financially plan for the entirety of their degree.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both CAUS and ASEC have historically lobbied for all tuition increases to be tied to Consumer Price Index (CPI).<\/p>\n

Included in its pre-budget submission, CAUS urged the government to begin regulating international students\u2019 tuition.<\/p>\n

As international students cannot vote and are therefore aren’t considered stakeholders, their tuition and non-instructional fees have gone unprotected by the government.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know what kind of solutions they are looking into. – Marlene Morin<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since the introduction of the tuition freeze, many institutions in Alberta hiked international students\u2019 fees drastically, including a 40-per-cent increase for some international students at SAIT in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe institutions have to receive their money from somewhere, and international students tend to take the brunt of it,\u201d said Morin.<\/p>\n

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Colder than Alberta: <\/strong> Students on SAIT campus walk towards the Campus Centre building, home to the SAIT Students’ Association (SAITSA) in Calgary on Monday, Sept. 25, 2017. Alex Dimopoulos, the SAITSA President, has spoken out about the extended tuition, with concerns for the future of Albertan student fees. (Photo by Rachel Moerschfelder\/SAIT)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SAIT students who are enjoying the government’s extended tuition freeze could be in for a shock, once the situation changes. While the Notley government has announced that tuition at Alberta post-secondary institutions will capped again [ READ MORE ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":402,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_ef_editorial_meta_text_assignment-slug":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,2,510],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-37731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-image","6":"category-news","7":"category-campus-2","8":"category-saitsa","9":"post_format-post-format-image"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/402"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37731"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41321,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37731\/revisions\/41321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}