University of Calgary postpones tuition talks after backlash from student union

The University of Calgary (UCalgary) has pulled back on tuition talks after its student union demanded they have a voice in the tuition hike process.

In a statement released Thursday, the UCalgary Student Union (SU) said the school was going ahead with talks without consulting “with undergraduate students on upcoming increases to tuition and fees.”

The SU said they reached out to the province’s Advanced Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides to intervene and “ensure that students are engaged and consulted.”

In a statement to CityNews, UCalgary says the school is “happy” to involve the SU.

“The University of Calgary is happy to accommodate the request from the Students’ Union to move the vote on tuition to a later Board of Governors meeting to allow additional student consultation,” said a school spokesperson.

Nicole Schmidt, the president of the UCalgary SU, says it was a challenge consulting with the school and was “pleased” with the decision, but says the university should have said something sooner.

“Had the university actually listened from the start and consulted with students, as they’re required to do under provincial regulation, we could have avoided the situation,” she said.

“It wasn’t until the Students Union actually wrote to the Minister of Advanced Education and went public with the university not consulting students, only then did the university change its tune on consulting with students for these tuition and fee increases.”

According to the SU, the Finance and Property Committee of the UCalgary Board of Governors was to vote on tuition increases on Nov. 21, and then they would consult with student leaders on Nov. 29. The proposed tuition increase would then go to a vote with the board of governors on Dec. 9.

Schmidt says the vote for the increase has moved to March 2023. However, UCalgary says the vote has been moved to a “later date.”

UCalgary in line with province

Schmidt says the province’s Tuition and Fees Regulation forces the school to consult with students, and that UCalgary is “obligated to consult with students on proposed tuition and fee increases.”

“The concern was that they were only coming to our student legislative council after a board vote had already occurred. So, now what’s taking place instead is they will be coming to our student legislative council before the board vote actually occurs,” Schmidt said.

UCalgary is meeting with students on Nov. 29.

In the same statement, the university says the tuition increase has been communicated and is in line with the province.

“The University administration is proposing tuition increases in line with changes to Alberta CPI, as envisioned in the tuition framework and as has been previously communicated,” read the statement.

According to a UCalgary statement on tuition increases for the 2022-23 year released at the end of 2021, it says there was a five-year tuition freeze from the 2014-15 year through to 2019-20. At the end of the freeze, the Alberta government amended the Tuition and Fees Regulation in 2019 to allow domestic tuition to increase by seven per cent in each of the following three years. No program is supposed to increase by 10 per cent.

The current tuition proposal would be the fourth hike outside the three-year tuition increase window.

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Schmidt says it has been a “very challenging series of years for students.”

“Students are struggling to find summer employment, they’re struggling with the cost of living expenses and the cost of food and rent. And then in addition to that, we’ve had a series of really massive consecutive tuition increases from year to year,” Schmidt said.

Students have seen an overall increase in their tuition of 25 per cent across all programs over the last three years. Undergraduate engineering students are seeing around 60 per cent more on their tuition than in 2019. In 2021, UCalgary increased tuition for international students in the engineering graduate program by 56 per cent.

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CityNews has reached out to Nicolaides’ office for comment.

-With files from Chris Bowen