Board of Governors Approves Tuition Fee Increase

UBC Reports | Vol. 49 | No. 2 | Feb.
6, 2003

UBC’s Board of Governors voted Jan. 27 to raise tuition
fees by an average of 30 per cent for undergraduate students
and 20 per cent for research-based graduate programs. Students
in professional graduate programs such as Journalism, Architecture
and Human Kinetics will see a 20-30 percent increase in their
tuition fees. A differentiated undergraduate engineering fee
will increase tuition for that program by 40 per cent.

At the same time, the Board mandated that 15 per cent of
the 30 per cent base tuition increase be put towards student
financial assistance; and that 20 per cent of any tuition
increases beyond the 30 per cent base — such as the new engineering
fees — will be allocated to student financial aid.

Vice-president, Students Brian Sullivan said that this year’s
increases were necessary because the university is still emerging
from a prolonged period of frozen tuition fees in which the
quality of programs suffered.

The additional tuition revenue for 2003-04, estimated at
$28 million, will be used to attract and retain top-quality
faculty, lower class sizes, improve course availability and
financial assistance programs, and refurbish teaching facilities.

The new fee schedule will take effect in May 2003, except
for students in the 12-month Bachelor of Education program,
who won’t have to pay more until September 2003.

Detailed information on the tuition fee proposal approved
by the Board can be found at: http://students.ubc.ca/finance/tuitionpolicy/proposal.cfm.

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