Students React to Tuition Study

OTTAWA, Sept. 16 /CNW/ - Tuition fees increased 4% according to Statistics Canada's university tuition study that was released this morning; the average price paid by undergraduate students in Canada is $5,138. Graduate students faced even larger increases of 6.6%, with graduate student paying an average of $5,182.

"Universities and colleges have been underfunded for more than a decade, requiring students to offset costs by paying higher tuition fees," said Zach Dayler, National Director of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations. "Further, students and families have fewer resources to pay for a post-secondary education as a result of the recession."

Federal budget cuts in the early nineties substantially reduced transfers to the provinces for post-secondary education, resulting in a post-secondary education funding gap of nearly $4 billion across Canada. This funding gap has led to increasingly high tuition fees, over the past fifteen years.

The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations is asking the federal government to increase the federal funding for post-secondary education to $4 billion per year.

Additionally, while undergraduate students can receive funding under the Canada Student Grant Program, graduate students cannot. That is why CASA is asking for the Government of Canada to implement a grant of $2,000 for graduate students with high financial need to help them pay for their programs.

The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) is a non-partisan, not-for-profit national student organization composed of 24 student associations, representing over 300,000 students from coast to coast.

For more information please contact:

For further information:

Jillian Flake, Public Relations and Communications Officer CASA
Tel.: [phone] ext. 224 (c) 613-868-6605            E-mail: [email protected]