Past & Present Student Governors Oppose Proposed Tuition Increases

UBC’s Financial Situation

We understand that tuition is critical to the University as it represents a plurality of revenues in our discretionary operating budget. We also recognize the financial challenges that this unprecedented year has resulted in, including reductions in ancillary sources of revenue such as student housing. We have been impressed with the administration’s ability to respond to these challenges, resulting in a reduction in the final operating deficit that is less than one-third of the projections from last summer.

While we recognize that many of the measures that were put in place to achieve this are not sustainable in the long term, we still wonder whether there may be room for improved efficiencies across the institution. We thank the Board Chair & Finance Chair for organizing a recent budget deep dive session, which solidified our belief that further work is needed to understand the base budget, assumptions, and financial models we are applying. To be blunt: it is very easy for this Board to increase tuition annually, as we have been doing so for countless years. But we fundamentally oppose pursuing tuition increases without exploring all other avenues, as we have heard in every annual student consultation¹ that these tuition increases directly impact our most vulnerable students. And while we note our opposition to the concurrent budget and tuition cycle this year, we also recognize that this has forced the Board to grapple with what is fiscally necessary to support the University’s operations. We wish to ensure we are leveraging our current resources to the greatest gain; thus, we request a review of the entire base budget model. Similarly, we would like to thank the administration for providing additional information on the tuition allocation model before the Board considered this item. We request a further review and discussion of the tuition allocation model at the Board level.

We would also like to register our discomfort with the unusual allocation model being applied to these particular tuition increases. In our understanding, all of the incremental tuition revenue is allocated towards an undefined and unjustified set of ‘student priorities’. We are concerned triply with this approach. First, students have made it explicitly clear as per the consultation that their preference is to not be charged an increased tuition rate. This is in our mind, the key ‘student priority’. Second, that the lack of detailed spending plans for these ‘priorities’ makes it unclear why this revenue is actually needed and prevents accountability for these monies, in effect becoming a blank cheque. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it is unclear the impacts of funding these ‘priorities’ will have on teaching and learning — and as this money will not flow to the faculties for one year, we are concerned about the impacts on the University’s academic mission. We request that there is reporting back to the Board on the nature and impact of these ‘student priorities’ and that this allocation approach is examined in depth at the next annual tuition and/or budget conversations. In particular, the administration has made it clear we have separate contingencies for COVID-19 and feel our student financial aid system is currently adequate. We are deeply concerned about one-time approaches to support programs for students that are discontinued in subsequent years. In the case of student financial support programs funded as one-time ‘student priorities’, we request the administration commit to continual funding for financial aid programs.

Consultation Process

We recognize that the tuition consultation is only one component in the Board process. However, we have several concerns with the approach this year, which we will briefly outline:

• This consultation was held late in the budgeting process; all budgets this Board received assumed the increases would pass. This undermines the purpose of the consultation. It is unclear if not having an increase was even seriously considered when budgeting. We request reconsideration of the timeline of this process in future years.
• We would like to highlight the importance of consultation as a two-way dialogue and as a tool to maintain a relationship between the student body and the University. As in previous years, after this Board cycle, we request that the administration communicates a public response to the consultation to those who received the request to provide feedback.
• The administration supplied students with minimal information about the prioritization areas. As several students noted in the feedback, they did not feel the University sufficiently informed them enough to make such a decision. Additionally, we’d mention the addition of these questions was not a request of elected student leaders who raised issues with their addition to the consultation. If there is an intention to continue this style of question, we request the administration provide sufficient background information to respondents in future consultations.
• This data was collected before the announcement of a return to in-person classes in Sept 2021; therefore, students prioritizing topics such as hybrid learning may have shifted significantly. We strongly suggest not relying on this prioritization data.
• Finally, the consultation and subsequent decision-making regarding tuition increases were not done in a sufficiently transparent manner by the Board and the Administration. The tuition consultation and tuition increases should not be the subject of closed conversations at the Board, especially when making a final decision. We request that the Board and the administration have all future discussions about tuition increases and the tuition consultation in open session at both the Committee and Board level, especially when making a final decision.

“Well-Supported” Students

The pandemic has left students financially devastated — unemployed, struggling with food and housing insecurity, losing family members to COVID-19. While many domestic students have benefitted from government support, international students have been disproportionately affected and left without government support. We are still in a state of emergency — at the time of writing this, COVID-19 cases are at an all-time high. Our response to tuition increases must take into consideration the scale of this public health emergency and the impacts this will have on our students for decades moving forward. We call on the Board to show compassion for our students in this unprecedented time of need — if there ever was a year to not increase tuition, this is it.

We have been assured that students are “well-supported” at UBC, that we have a “robust” student financial support (bursary) system. We are trying to reconcile these statements with the data we have been provided. From the consultation itself, nearly 80% of respondents identified as experiencing some level of financial stress, with over half of respondents described experiencing ‘quite a bit’ to a ‘great deal’ of financial stress. The AMS’s academic experience survey², COVID-19 survey³, and GSS student satisfaction survey⁴ report similar findings — particularly the inaccessibility of financial aid. Even before the pandemic, students have been slipping through the cracks. We encourage our fellow Governors to reflect on the clear message from the data in front of us.

We know that we did not disburse all the monies that were allocated to the student financial support system this year⁵ and simultaneously saw a significant uptake in an emergency bursary program put in place as a stopgap for those adversely impacted by the pandemic⁶. We do not understand whether the overall system is best positioned to support students. We reiterate the need and capacity for the University to perform a comprehensive review of the support services available. These are not new concerns and requests; to quote our remarks during the November 2019 tuition increase vote:

“Thirdly, we and past student governors have raised a number of concerns about the University’s approach to affordability. The University undertakes many important initiatives that help address affordability like Student Financial Aid, the Blue & Gold Campaign for Students, Open Educational Resources, Below Market Student Housing, and more. However, the University still lacks any comprehensive plan to address the affordability crisis that is faced by students on this campus. The lack of a cohesive, strategic approach has left serious gaps in our support systems which actively harm our most vulnerable students.

Increasing tuition without a systematic plan to address the affordability crisis that we have pushed our students towards is careless. Our students are clear on this: in this consultation we have students highlighting how the financial pressures of attending this university have led them to self-harm, food insecurity, reduced academic performance, and delayed graduation. We understand the “taxation” argument that the revenue from increasing tuition will be used to fund support services — but we cannot support that approach if our support services are flawed as a system. As one student put it, “this tuition increase will unduly harm students, and the proposed benefits will not be applicable to most students.

We believe the frustration that our students demonstrated in the consultation has two root causes: the lack of a clear strategic vision tied to these proposed increases, and the lack of a strategy to address financial pressures. We request that the next proposal for tuition increases be a multi-year plan, paired with a demonstrated, effective approach to affordability.”

As we noted in our correspondence to the Board and the Administration, aside from ensuring students do not fall through the gaps, we believe such an approach is in strong alignment with the University’s Strategic Plan⁷, our Mandate Letter⁸, and could be a tool for better governance. We reiterate our request for a holistic affordability plan that considers our various supports, from housing to textbook costs to tuition. We request a timeline for when this work will be completed and the resources allocated to support the plan.

Lastly, we would like to recognize the joint AMS, GSS, and SUO submissions and concerns and the 6000+ students who submitted comments. We also recognize the significant participation of both Graduate and International students who are deeply affected by these increases.

After much reflection, we have concluded that these increases are unwarranted and would not be in the University’s best interest. We implore our colleagues on the Board of Governors to critically examine the proposed financial model, to hear students, to be compassionate, and to reject these unjustified tuition increases.

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Max Holmes is an arts student and a Board of Governors member elected by the UBC Vancouver student body.

Shola Fashanu is a mechanical engineering student and a Board of Governors member elected by the UBC Okanagan student body.

Georgia Yee is biology student and a Board of Governors member elected by the UBC Vancouver student body.

Jassim Naqvi is a medical biochemistry and economics student and a previous Board of Governors member (2019–2021) elected by the UBC Okanagan student body.

Jeanie Malone is a PhD candidate in biomedical engineering and a previous Board of Governors member elected (2017–2021) by the UBC Vancouver student body.