At a time when University of Calgary tuition hikes are raising both controversy and the ire of students, how does the price of education in Canada compare to other nations?
Across Europe, post-secondary education has traditionally been free and accessible to all. In recent years, however, the trend towards implementing tuition fees has been gaining popularity among cash-strapped European universities.
Britain was the first to impose tuition fees, which, at £1,025 ($2,276 CAD) a year, are Europe’s most expensive. Holland, although its universities charge fees equal to $2,131 CAD a year, gives all students annual loans which become grants when certain academic requirements are met.
Education is still free in Finland, Sweden and Denmark, while Spain, Portugal, Austria, Italy and France have recently introduced tuition fees ranging from €600 ($931 CAD) to €1,450 ($2,250 CAD) a year.
Germany’s law against tuition fees is currently being challenged.
A growing problem with free tuition in countries such as Italy and Germany is the large numbers of long-term students. According to the German newspaper Die Welt, a student at Berlin's Freie Universitat was recently discovered to have been there 92 semesters, or 46 years.
As for American students, many of them will be facing huge hikes this year as well. Tuition fees increased by 14.1 per cent at public universities and by six per cent at private institutions this year.
In October, the Affordability in Higher Education Act was introduced. If passed, this bill would regulate the cost of college education by penalizing schools that increase their tuition by more than twice the rate of inflation over a three-year period.
By 2011, the federal government would also have the power to withhold funding from any university it feels has raised its tuition too much. Currently, average yearly tuition at public universities in the United States is over $4,000 or $5,187 Canadian. At private universities, average tuition exceeds $18,000 or $23,342 Canadian per academic year.
For approximately 40 years, most students in China received free post-secondary education as a result of universities receiving large government grants. Graduates were then willing to take whatever jobs were assigned to them by the government.
In the early 1990s, however, this system was declared to be a hindrance to the growth of a market economy, and tuition fees were instituted. The Chinese government set tuition fees at between 4,200 and 6,000 RMB ($661-994 CAD) per year.
For many, especially those living in rural areas, yearly tuition fees exceed their annual income. Some government aid and loan programs are in place for poor students, but for many the cost is too high. In one well-publicized example, a Chinese farmer committed suicide as a result of his inability to pay for his daughter’s university education.
In many countries, the cost of education appears to be relatively low compared to our own. Thailand’s largest university charges 5,000 baht ($160 CAD) per semester. The trend around the world, however, seems to be one of rapidly increasing tuition fees.
In October 2003, students of the University of Zambia stormed the Senate after learning about proposed tuition hikes. If approved, the hikes would double tuition to five million Zambian Kwacha ($1,370 CAD). With low wages and little government aid, these increases put post-secondary education out of reach for many.