Averages are funny things. I guess a lot of students have been taking fewer classes then me for most of my degree, since apparently only now does the average tuition for arts and science top $5,000 (with the approved 4.1% increase in tuition).
So what have I (or my parents, or student loans) paid in tuition thus far?
- 2004-2005: $5493.36
- 2005-2006: $6040.22
- 2006-2007: $5140.14
- 2007-2008: $4519.98
- 2008-2009: $4559.88
- Average: $5150.72 (per year)
Although it looks deceptively like my tuition dropped from 2006-2008, in reality I took around 4 fewer courses per year in 2007-2008 than in 2005-2006. The key to note is that my academic average tuition is greater than the $5,000 that science and arts students now get to pay.
University is damn expensive, and hence why the Students’ Union’s Restricted Access campaign is about more than just challenging the Board of Govenors decision to raise tuition as much as possible every year, but about actually raising awareness of how expensive it is to attend university.
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For me it was
2006-07 $5,502.62
2007-08 $6,822.98
2008-09 $5,663.40
Total $17,989.00
Average: $5,996.33
Again with 4 fewer classes in 08-09 than 07-08. How are they calculating this average?
It looks at “basic arts/science” students, which I think is only 4 courses per term (at ~$500 per class would make $4,000 total, plus fees). I think EngPhys is one of the more expensive degrees though, just due to extra course requirements (something they don’t tell you in Engg101).
Actually, it’s tuition that’s just going over $5000 now.
My tuition + fees for five classes (full course load for arts/science) has always been over $5000 a year, but next year will be the first year where tuition alone is over $5000.
What the University is referring to when they say tuition is tuition alone, not including all the additional(but still mandatory) fees.
Though it is true, that a lot of students do not take five courses a term because they simply cannot do the work for their courses, plus work to pay for their tuition at the same time, and fortunately for students in most programs, it won’t negatively affect them to take less than the full course load, though I think it does for you in engineering right? There’s some sort of penalty applied to your GPA if you don’t take a full course load, or am I wrong?
If you have less than 30 credits (or something like that) in first year they “adjust” your competitive GPA. However, once you’re in a program it’s smooth sailing.
For me it was
2002-03 – $4,490.78
2003-04 – $4,782.50
2004-05 – $5,033.42
2005-06 – $2,690.42
2006-07 – $4,134.70
Those are including the mandatory none instructional fees. The first 3 years were taking a full 30 credit course load, 2005-06 was when I was doing my industrial internship and took 2 courses to get the out of the way (plus ~$700 a term for “work experience”) and 2006-07 was 8 courses, and tuition was the same as 2004-05 because of the temporary tuition freeze.
Although engineering appears to cost more, when I entered university the high school entrance scholarships were something like $500 more than in science (it might have been $1000, but I am not sure), plus the average salary of a graduate with an engineering degree is higher than that of a science/arts graduate. In our current system this then makes sense, however I would prefer to see much lower tuition across the board, or preferably some type of forgivable loans which would be erased upon graduation.