Paying for tuition especially difficult for Sask students, says report

REGINA – Juggling university while trying to work to pay for tuition can be challenging for students, but a new report finds the struggle is especially high for those in Saskatchewan.

“Even now I’ve got two part-time jobs,” said University of Regina pre-medicine student Oleg Fidler. He says money is tight but he’s managed to stay ahead of his university tuition debt by working throughout the summer. “For two semesters, I probably pay at least $10,000.”

According to Statistics Canada, Saskatchewan has the second highest undergraduate tuition in the country, behind Ontario.

Taking into account minimum wage, an average undergraduate student in Saskatchewan has to work triple the hours they would have had to in 1975 to cover tuition, the largest increase in Canada, according to a report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

“It has been almost like a tradition to increase tuition fees for students every year,” said Sylvain Rheault with the Saskatchewan Association of University Teachers. “If you’re a student, what do you do with that number? Are you going to stay in Saskatchewan to study or are you going to go somewhere else?”

However, the U of R says the Stats Canada figures are skewed because they include high-fee programs like medicine and dentistry.

“Saskatchewan has the highest percentage of students in those programs in the country,” said Brian Christie, Associate Vice-President of Resource Planning. “So it’s not surprising that the average fee, when they calculate that, is way is high.”

Christie says if you compare tuition for a specific program, the U of R is very competitive: “The University of Regina’s tuition fees for arts are among the bottom quarter of all tuitions fees in the country.”

Saskatchewan’s Minister for Advanced Education highlights a tax incentive as a way the province eases the burden.

“That’s working. We know that because 50,000 students in Saskatchewan are now benefiting from the graduate retention program,” said Rob Norris.

According to Stats Canada, the dentistry program at the University of Saskatchewan is the most expensive undergraduate program in the country.