Eliminate tuition for nursing students, university president urges province

The Higgs government can quickly boost the number of nursing students in New Brunswick by eliminating their tuition fees, says the president of the University of Moncton.

Denis Prud'homme told the legislature's public accounts committee that eliminating the fees would be a better way to spend money than the province's decision to subsidize New Brunswick students in a nursing program offered by a university in Maine.

"In my view, there's a very efficient way to quickly increase the number of bachelor or nursing candidates," Prud'homme said. "That's to eliminate tuition fees. It's an urgent need."

The government announced last October that it will offer a $6,000 "incentive grant" to up to 100 New Brunswick students who enrol in the bachelor of science in nursing program at Beal University in Bangor, Maine.

The three-year program will involve online courses in the first year and a mix of online and in-person courses in the second and third years.

Students who accept the $6,000 grant must agree to work as registered nurses in New Brunswick for at least one year after graduation.

'Lack of transparency'

Prud'homme told MLAs that he considered the grant to be "inequitable" to students pursuing bachelor of nursing degrees at University of Moncton and the University of New Brunswick.

"There was a lack of transparency in the establishment of that program" at Beal, he said. "The universities weren't involved in the process."

Because his university is a francophone institution, Prud'homme said he is not worried about competition for students from Beal. 

But UNB may feel differently, he said.

The $6,000-per-student Beal grants amount to "investing in the United States rather than our institutions here," he said. "That money could have been invested at UNB to increase their capacity, and that would have had a positive impact."

According to UNB's website, bachelor of nursing students from Canada are paying $10,344.50 in tuition and fees this year while international students are paying $21,307.

UNB was not able to say Wednesday afternoon how many students are in the nursing program this year or how many it expects to enrol in the fall.

Prud'homme acknowledged a series of other initiatives the province has launched to get more students into nursing, including international bursaries, a work-study program and funding for more seats and for more nurse practitioners.

"These are all programs that help but I think we can do even more," he said.

Beal University plans to admit New Brunswick students this fall under a conditional approval of its plan from the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission.

Commission CEO Catherine Stewart told MLAs that the commission has agreed to fast-track Beal's two-step assessment process to help the school win final approval.

"I expect that they will, but it's too early in the process to say," she said.

It's normal to have a "back-and-forth" with an institution new to Canada, Stewart said.

Under questioning from Progressive Conservative MLAs, she said a university new to the province must go through an institutional assessment to ensure it is a self-governing university, and an assessment of its programs for quality assurance.

The commission is making those two assessments a priority, "but they have to be ready," she said of Beal, which she added has yet to submit its program proposal for approval.

She expects the commission to advise the province on the institutional assessment in May and then turn to the program assessment. 

Moncton's Oulton College is also launching a bachelor of science in nursing program that has won conditional approval and is now being assessed by the commission.