U of C students Jane Ballegooyen (l) and Amanda Winters are considering switching to a lower-cost university

She’s a first-year University of Calgary law student who aims to work in the not-for-profit sector helping the downtrodden. But the university’s plan to hike tuition almost 47 per cent for some students could force Amanda Winters to abandon that noble pursuit.

“If I have to spend all my time paying off my debt, then I can’t work with these organizations because I won’t have time and that’s a real concern for me,” she says.

The university recently dropped a last-minute bombshell by proposing to raise tuition for five professional degrees: business, education, medicine, law and engineering. And for all students, it proposes a $500 “compulsory fee.”

Under Alberta legislation, institutions don’t need the province’s approval to increase tuition at the same rate as inflation — 1.5 per cent last year. However, faced with government funding cutbacks, a $78-million hit to the university’s endowment fund and cost overruns on several large projects, the university is pushing to hike tuition closer to that of top Canadian universities.

If approved, that would mean an annual increase of $200 to $4,000 for engineering and medical students, respectively. The figures are not yet set in stone, as university officials are now scrambling to present a written proposal to the province before the government releases its budget February 9.

“With the jump, I’m going to be paying close to $14,000 in tuition at the U of C,” says Winters. “If I go to the University of British Columbia, I’m paying less than $10,000. When students have this kind of debt-load, we want to help the public but we can’t afford it. It’s really shortsighted.”

According to Statistics Canada, the average student debt rose to $18,800 from $15,200 between 1995 and 2005. The number of students with debt loads of $25,000 or more also increased during that period to 27 per cent, up from 17 per cent.

Hit with a barrage of questions from frustrated students for more than an hour at a meeting on February 2, Alan Harrison, a top university official, responded by saying the school doesn’t have much choice other than raising tuition. The university, he said, lacks government funding and is facing a huge deficit, $14.3 million for 2008-2009.

“If all these increases were put into effect we would still be in the middle of the pack in comparison to competing universities,” the university provost told the crowd. He said the U of C is competing with top universities, including Queen’s, McGill and McMaster universities — then claimed his university offers the same educational quality of those more expensive schools.

The latter remark drew a chorus of boos and laughter from 1,000 students, most of whom are appalled and furious about the proposed hikes.

“He’s comparing us to a school like Queen’s? Are you kidding me?” says Jane Ballegooyen, a fourth-year business student. “I had a professor who took the course she is now teaching last semester in order to teach it to us. She wasn’t a good professor.” As well, classes have recently become so large, business school students end up sitting on the floor, she says, adding, “What quality is that?”

Winters pressed the provost to justify the proposed tuition hike for law students, especially for those who want to work for non-governmental organizations (NGO) that typically don’t pay the large salaries corporations offer. Harrison answered by saying a $6,000 hike in tuition wouldn’t likely influence a student’s decision about a career that could span 30 years. “Sorry, it just isn’t that big of a sum of money in the context,” he said. “If people wish to pursue positions that do not involve the sort of money that many people can make when they graduate from law, then that’s their choice.”

Harrison’s frank and harsh remarks drew the ire of the students’ union (SU). “There was a lot of glibness frankly around a lot of the real concerns they have about their lives, like whether they will be able to pursue public or NGO work,” says SU president Charlotte Kingston. “To see that so easily dismissed was really hurtful to a lot of people in this room and outside of it.”

There’s a “gross” underestimation of how highly students value other school options, Kingston says. “Students thought Mount Royal was a great establishment before it was a university and now that they have the option of pursuing a degree there you’ll see a lot of them choose that,” she predicts. “On top of that, Mount Royal has somehow managed to balance its budget while staying well within the tuition-fee regulation, which is something I think students will consider when they wonder whether they can trust the institution they’ve chosen.”

The U of C lost $78 million on investments when the financial markets tanked in 2008. As well, it was revealed last year that former university president Harvey Weingarten was awarded a $4.5 million pension. Alberta auditor general Fred Dunn, who openly accused university officials of trying to conceal the “handshake” agreement, lambasted the deal.

Ballegooyen says she’s now seriously looking at attending other schools to finish her degree. “My first choice for business school was the University of British Columbia because it’s on par with what I can pay and I feel they have better quality. If I had the option now whether to go to UBC or the U of C, I for sure would go to UBC, even Mount Royal University.”