Undergrad tuition rises to average of $4,724 a year: StatsCan

Full-time Canadian undergraduate students paid an average of $4,724 in tuition for the 2008/2009 academic year, an increase of 3.6 per cent over the previous year, Statistics Canada said Thursday.

The rise, which follows on the heels of a 2.8 per cent increase in the 2007/2008 academic year, was especially prominent in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island. Fees held steady in Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and dropped in Nova Scotia.

Despite the drop in Nova Scotia — the result of the implementation of the Nova Scotia University Student Bursary Trust in March 2008 — students paid the highest fees anywhere in Canada: $5,932. Quebec ($2,167) and Newfoundland and Labrador ($2,632) had the lowest tuition fees.

Statistics Canada analysts were at pains to point out that the average annual increase over the last decade has outpaced the consumer price index. The CPI is a way of measuring the cost of items purchased by a typical Canadian in any given month, and includes shelter, food, entertainment, fuel and transportation.

In the last 10 years, tuition has increased annually an average of 4.4 per cent — it was $3,064 in 1998/1999. In contrast, the CPI rose at an annual average rate of 2.3 per cent.

Meanwhile, tuition fees for full-time undergraduate international students increased 3.9 per cent on average to $14,495 compared to the previous year.

Canadian graduate students paid 3.3 per cent more for tuition than a year earlier, with an average of $5,777 in fees this fall.

Tuition fees don't include additional compulsory fees, such as those for athletics, student health services and student associations, which increased  3.3 per cent from a year earlier.  On average, Canadian undergraduate students paid $695 in additional compulsory fees in 2008/2009, up from $673 a year earlier.