Tories doff the cap; post-secondary tuition can go up by 5% plus inflation

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This article was published 20/03/2017 (3148 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Post-secondary undergraduate tuition for domestic students will be allowed to go up by five per cent plus the rate of inflation beginning in the 2018-19 academic year, Education Minister Ian Wishart announced Monday.

The bill tabled for first reading removes the cap imposed by the former NDP government that held tuition increases to the inflation rate.

“The five per cent we think is a very modest increase,” Wishart said. “I don’t believe enrolment rates will go down at all.”

Manitoba has had Canada’s third-lowest tuition — behind only Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec — for many years. Wishart said Manitoba tuition would remain lowest in Western Canada; the bill lets him claw back operating grants if Manitoba ever exceeds the western Canadian average.

Combined with operating-grant increases that have been in the 2.5-per-cent range, the province’s universities say they’ve been struggling to maintain the status quo, let alone add jobs, programs and services.

Wishart said that the new limit does not apply to graduate student fees or to the surcharges on international students.

The bill removes restrictions on course-related fees, but Wishart expects those to be levied at a cost-recovery rate. When tuition was lower, he said, “They would find anything possible to load onto a course fee.”

Wishart will set college tuition rates through regulation, based on a western Canadian average.

In an email, U of M president David Barnard said the university is currently $2,000 a year behind the University of Saskatchewan. Had Manitoba been on par, “those additional funds would enable the university to provide access to more students with financial challenges through improved scholarships and bursaries, and at the same time enhance programming and facilities to meet ever-evolving student needs.”

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca