Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/04/2010 (4812 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

University of Manitoba’s business school will unveil a proposal this morning to increase tuition for its MBA program by 78.5 per cent over three years and by 54.1 per cent over two years for its undergraduate degree.

That works out to a total of $15,000 more for MBA students and $2,500 more for undergrads.

Dean Glenn Feltham will tell students the proposed increases would still leave the I.M. Asper School of Business with below-average fees for comparable Canadian schools.

The fee hikes would enable the business school to expand its programs, hire additional faculty, and offer more courses, say documents prepared for the town hall meetings.

The first town hall will start at 10 a.m. in the Fishbowl — the common lobby area of the business school. There will also be town halls in the Fishbowl at 7 p.m. this evening, Wednesday at 11:30 a.m., and Thursday and 2:30 p.m. A final town hall at 12:15 p.m. Saturday in room 107 will sum up feedback.

The business school is the first of up to a reported eight schools within the university to go public with consultation about proposed tuition increases.

Advanced Education Minister Diane McGifford said in an interview that she is open to considering exemptions to university tuition caps, especially in professional faculties.

"It would have to be a very convincing argument," she said.

The minister said she won’t prejudge any of the proposals being bandied about, until U of M comes forward with specifics later this month.

The proposals will be filtered through the arm’s-length Council on Post-Secondary Education (COPSE), which will recommend approval or rejection.

The minister said one of the key criteria will be student support for higher fees, although not necessarily through a referendum.

U of M president David Barnard says the cash-strapped university will bring forward requests this month for tuition increases in some faculties, to take effect in September.

Medicine wants 114 per cent over four years, dentistry 40 per cent, and agriculture 20 per cent.

U of M Students’ Union president Sid Rashid says the university has also directed nursing, architecture, law and pharmacy to prepare justification for increases far in excess of the five per cent general tuition increase the provincial government will allow this year.

However, U of M public affairs director John Danakas said the requests come from within faculties, not from the top down.

"Later this month, the university will put forward a package to government," Danakas said Monday.

"We’re getting extraordinary tuition fees by stealth," said Prof. Brad McKenzie, president of the U of M Faculty Association. "Consultation is going to be limited. The voice that students have in this is marginalized."

He said U of M is not saying what financial support it would give to students unable to pay higher tuition.

U of M’s budget is expected to include cuts to jobs, programs and services. Every faculty and department has been told to look for five per cent of its budget to cut. The University of Winnipeg, in the same budget predicament, says it’s watching carefully how McGifford responds to U of M’s bids for higher fees.

McGifford said accessibility remains paramount for the Selinger government, but pointed out that she has approved previous large tuition increases for dentistry, pharmacy, law and engineering, on the advice of COPSE, and has accepted the council’s recommendation to reject past proposals from music and several other faculties.

"This is nothing new — we’ve done it in the past," McGifford said. "They’ve all had extraordinary costs."

McGifford pointed to the report on tuition fees by former deputy minister Benjamin Levin, which led to the government lifting the tuition freeze last September.

"Dr. Levin does suggest that there are circumstances that tuition can and should be raised more than the average increment," McGifford said.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca