This morning, the email hit my box from AU that the Board of Governors had approved tuition increases of 2% for both undergraduate and graduate programs and courses, to take effect on September 1, 2025. This increase is the maximum allowable by law for this year for Alberta students, and AU has, as per usual, chosen to also apply the same increase to out-of-province students. Indigenous students will keep the 10% tuition reduction they currently have, so small mercies are provided.
In addition, the course materials fee for undergraduate courses will be increasing by $16/course. This means a total cost increase of $28.18 per course for a non-indigenous student, $26.96 if you are. It’s not a lot, but when you’re already stretched thin juggling school and work, hit by price inflation and wage stagnation, every little bit hurts.
The email indicates they will continue to work closely with student leaders to increase access to rapid and effective funding supports. I take this to mean that they hope AUSU will come up with more funding in awards and programs such as their emergency bursary and virtual food assistance program to make up for the extra costs they’re imposing.
And the horrible thing is, I don’t even blame them. Your tutors and professors and other staff at AU are dealing with the same cost inflations you are, and years of successive conservative governments working diligently toward (and boasting about) reducing the amount they spend on post-secondary education to among the lowest in the country on a per student level (to say nothing of in comparison to the province’s GDP) and, personally, I don’t believe there’s any more meat, never mind fat, left to trim from post-secondary budgets. Given that most of the funding post-secondary institutions in Alberta receive is from private sources, is it even reasonable to say we have a publicly funded post-secondary system? I suppose you could argue that we have a publicly assisted post-secondary system, but sometimes I wonder how long even that will continue.
Regardless, our fees are going up, though less than inflation. And yes, government support is, in fact, going up, but again, much less than inflation. Which leads to the obvious question, how is the university expected to keep up with inflation? To me, it seems the answer is simply, “it isn’t”. Education has never seemed to be high on an ideological conservative’s priority list, if you ask me, with most of it I expect seen as being “leftist training grounds” in any event.
Personally, I’m surprised I haven’t already seen spam promoting AU merchandise, as the university has to be looking for other ways to supplement the funding they receive. I sometimes wonder if the university should host a Go-Fund-Me page, more as a means of attempting to embarrass the provincial government into living up to their duty to provide a better economy and opportunities for their citizens (and those who don’t connect higher education with a better economy or additional opportunities are those who haven’t looked at the statistics) than to actually seek out funding. Or maybe that’s an idea for the students’ union to run, as the university itself may not want to run the risk of directly offending the hand that is supposed to feed it.
Between a rock and a hard place, I guess all that’s left is to enjoy the read.
