CSI welcomes today’s announcement from the Minister of College and Universities that have extended the tuition freeze for domestic students for the 2022-2023 academic year to provide financial certainty for domestic students.
As part of CSI’s 2022 Ontario Pre-Budget Submission, it was requested that the cost of tuition be frozen for both domestic and international students for an additional year to provide certainty for students and accompany it by an inflationary increase to post-secondary institutional funding to maintain the quality of education. While domestic students have received the certainty CSI has advocated for, international students are left to face the burden of funding post-secondary institutions increasing operating costs and expansion plans. ?
“Both domestic and international students have experienced a myriad of hardships throughout the pandemic, and today’s announcement will provide predictability for our domestic students, but it will likely result in tuition increases for our international students who have just as many financial barriers to accessing education,” said Sana Banu, CSI President. “International students at Conestoga College experienced a 7-12% increase in their tuition for the 2021-2022 academic year, continuing to increase the financial barriers to education for these members of our community.”
As part of CSI’s continued advocacy efforts, CSI will continue to work with post-secondary stakeholders to advocate for fair tuition for international students including a reduction in tuition fees to that equal of domestic students, and the expansion of the domestic tuition regulatory framework to international tuition that limits tuition increases to 5% per year. CSI will also continue to advocate for increased institutional funding to maintain a publicly-funded post-secondary environment.