Board of Governors post-report given at SLC
By Enobong Ukpong, November 1 2021—
Last week’s Students’ Legislative Council (SLC) meeting was held on Oct. 26. The main topics of discussion of the Board of Governors’ decision to approve the exceptional tuition increase proposal.
On Oct. 22, the Board of Governors’ voted to pass the exception tuition increase proposal. This proposal would see a significant increase in the tuition of students in the Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Engineering and MD students in the Cumming School of Medicine.
This would be the second time the proposal has passed through the Board of Governors.
Frank Finley, Board of Governors’ representative, expressed his disappointment on the passing of the proposal.
“The question is, where does this end and where do you start to draw the line?” said Finley. “You can increase the program cost by 200 per cent or 300 per cent, year over year, and yes, you’ll be able to provide a higher quality of education for the students in those programs, but you shut out the vast majority of the population who might want to come to the University of Calgary.”
Finley said the university compares its tuition to the U15, a collection of 15 research-intensive universities in Canada — a group which the University of Calgary is a part of.
“The U15 is not all the universities in Canada, North America or the world,” noted Finley. “There are other jurisdictions, primarily in Europe, where students can go and get quality education similar to the education they receive here for less money, even if they’re not citizens of those nations. I think it’s important, if we’re talking about ourselves as an international institution, to make those comparisons as well.”
Finley also expressed his frustration at the provincial government’s constant decrease of post-secondary funding, which he said causes the need for universities to increase tuition dramatically.
Students’ Union (SU) executives have a chance to advocate directly to the Minister of Advanced Education about these exceptional tuition increases.
Agendas, minutes and upcoming meetings for SLC can be found online.