High fees push Manitoba students to work nearly three times as many hours as previous generations
WINNIPEG, April 15, 2014 /CNW/ - An interactive tuition fee map released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives provides further evidence that it is dramatically more difficult to get a university education today than it was a generation ago.
"Tuition and ancillary fee increases over the last 30 years have driven students to work almost triple the number of hours than their parents did to pay for their studies," said Bilan Arte, Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students—Manitoba. "The tuition fee freeze made university more affordable, but fee increases since 2009 have significantly reduced these gains."
In 1977, students in Manitoba only needed to work 160 hours or four weeks of full-time work at minimum wage in order to pay for a year's tuition fees. This year, a student would have to work 420 hours or 10.5 weeks of full-time, minimum wage work and still find additional funding to pay for books and living expenses. Manitoba reversed this trend briefly by freezing tuition fees in the early 2000s. Newfoundland and Labrador has the lowest tuition fees in Canada and, as a result, students there have to work the fewest number of hours to pay tuition fees.
"Differential tuition fees between faculties make this worse by forcing more students to work more hours," added Arte. "Students in dentistry, for example, must work upwards of 1,800 hours to pay for a single year of school."
The Canadian Federation of Students-Manitoba is Manitoba's largest student organisation, uniting over 42,000 students across the province. As part of the Canadian Federation of Students, the Federation and its predecessor organisations have represented students in Canada since 1927.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' tuition fee map can be found at apps.policyalternatives.ca.
SOURCE: Canadian Federation of Students - Manitoba
Bilan Arte, Chairperson, 204-297-7230, [email protected]
Brianne Goertzen, Media Liaison, 204-783-0787, [email protected]
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