May 12, 2005
The NDP is promising to return tuition fees to 2004 levels. We’ve seen this story before:
The NDP Record
- The NDP has a history of announcing unfunded tuition freezes – freezing fees without providing universities enough funding to make up for the lost revenue. The result:
- Course availability diminished.
- Cut-off points for admission increase.
- It took longer to get the credits needed to graduate.
- Universities lost top academics and researchers to other universities in North America.
- Entrance requirements skyrocketed.
- Students paid thousands more in additional living expenses and tuition for extended course time due to this chronic under-funding.
- Even Carole James recognized the NDP’s failure on their tuition freeze:
"… one of the problems with the previous tuition freeze that was in place with the previous New Democrat government is that it didn’t include additional monies for the colleges and universities..." – Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce Breakfast, 21 Jan 05
- The NDP’s 9-month platform only makes a one-year commitment to freezing tuition, with only one year of funding provided. For students, parents and institutions, the future of post-secondary funding past next March remains in question.
The BC Liberal Record
- Today our tuition rates are comparable to the national average. B.C.’s 2004/05 university undergraduate fees were lower than fees in 4 other provinces, the same ranking as 10 years ago.
- B.C. still has the lowest undergraduate university tuition levels in the country west of Quebec, other than Manitoba, and average tuitions are in fact below the national average when our unique network of colleges are taken into account.
- We have committed to limit future tuition increases to the rate of inflation, effective this coming school year.
- In order to offset the cap on future tuition increases, we have increased the post-secondary education budget by $196 million over the next 3 years.
- We gave post-secondary institutions the autonomy to set tuition rates to expand course offerings, improve lab facilities, add services for students, and create new bursaries and scholarships.
- We are increasing access to post-secondary education with a plan to create 25,000 new student spaces by 2010 in addition to the nearly 6,000 spaces added since 2001. As a result, institutions like the University of Victoria are now accepting applications from students with a ‘B’ average after years of rising entrance requirements.
- We have undertaken the largest expansion of post-secondary spaces in 40 years, with new universities in Kamloops and Kelowna, a new SFU campus in Surrey, and expansions to colleges and institutes across BC.
- We are providing$450 million over the next three years for student aid, including loan reductions, debt relief, loan forgiveness, and grants for students with disabilities.
