Tuition study highlights federal funding gap in post-secondary education

OTTAWA , Oct. 20 /CNW Telbec/ - Tuition fees increased 3.6% according to Statistics Canada's university tuition study that was released this morning; the average price paid by undergraduate students in Canada is $4,917 .

"Universities and colleges have been underfunded for more than a decade, requiring students to offset costs by paying higher tuition fees," said Arati Sharma, 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, the New Brunswick Student Alliance, the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, the College Student Alliance, the Council of Alberta University Students, and the Alberta Student Executive Council, together representing over 600,000 students across the country, are asking the federal government to increase the federal funding for post-secondary education to $4 billion per year.

To ensure the effectiveness of this transfer, the federal government must work with the provinces in order to maintain their own post-secondary education spending upon receipt of this additional federal funding.

The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) is a non-partisan, not-for-profit national student organization composed of 23 student associations, representing 300,000 students from coast to coast.

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