Memorial University to double tuition to $6K a year, ending 22-year freeze

Memorial University is raising tuition fees after domestic fees were frozen for more than two decades. (Jeremy Eaton / CBC)

Memorial University will more than double its tuition fees from fall 2022, according to President Vianne Timmons, who spoke at a media briefing on Friday morning.

The announcement comes one day after an allegedly closed meeting to discuss changes to the institution’s long-term study freeze.

Full-time tuition for domestic students is now $ 6,000 per year. Prior to Friday’s announcement, full-time domestic tuition fees were set at $ 2,550 per year, which is among the lowest in Canada.

The cost for international students will rise to $ 20,000 annually, but will remain competitive with universities across Canada, according to Kent Decker, vice president of the School of Administration and Finance.

“Changing the structure of Memorial’s study program is not a light-hearted decision,” Timmons told reporters on Friday.

“[This] is as big a challenge as this university has never been before. Everything is on the table. “

Timmons added that the administration will review fees every year as part of the school’s budget process, stressing that the abrupt increase still positions the MUN as “the cheapest university in Atlantic Canada,” albeit on a narrow scale.

Domestic tariffs are now comparable to universities across the country, including the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto.

Currently enrolled students and students starting their studies in autumn 2021 do not pay the announced fee increase. However, the current fees for these students will increase 4 percent per year through 2026.

Vianne Timmons, president of Memorial University, said in May that tuition fees would likely have to triple to make ends meet. (Terry Roberts / CBC)

The rising fees are fueled by announcements in this year’s provincial budget, when Treasury Secretary Siobhan Coady announced that the $ 68 million government donated annually to the MUN will expire over five years from next year.

The budget change follows two recent reports, one from the prime minister’s economic recovery team and one from an independent review of post-secondary education in the province.

The university’s operating grants have also been cut continuously in recent years, cut in the 2017 budget by $ 9 million and by a further $ 20 million two years earlier.

The increase marks the first change in tuition fees in Newfoundland and Labrador since 1999, when the provincial government granted operating grants to post-secondary institutions to support study freezes. At the time, she called the student debt ratio a “national concern”.

In May, Timmons told CBC News that “initial analysis” of the report showed that tuition fees would likely have to triple to make ends meet, given the cuts in this year’s provincial budget.

“We hadn’t planned such a big jump,” she said at the time.

Students have criticized the prospect of a spike, saying the spike could cause regional and international students alike to struggle to complete an education in Newfoundland and Labrador.

They protested the expected cuts in June.

Addressing those concerns Friday, Timmons said fundraising for more scholarships and grants will be a priority for low-income students.

“This is the group that this will have the most impact on,” she said. “Students in need are our primary concern and that will be our fundraising focus as we move forward.”

Timmons briefly mentioned unspecified support for prospective international students, but did not elaborate on it.

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador

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