THE VARSITY The University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880
March 6, 2023
Vol. CXLIII, No. 20
International students at U of T pay nearly $60,000 in tuition every year. Why? Nina Uzunović Business & Labour Correspondent
This past week, the Ontario government announced an extension of the domestic tuition freeze for the 2023–2024 academic year. This tuition freeze first came into effect in 2020 and has been in place since then. However, tuition fee changes for international students remain unregulated. For years, international tuition has been a much-debated topic at U of T, with students and faculty alike challenging the enormous disparities between domestic and international tuition rates. In its last budget report, U of T stated that the high fees it requires from international students “[take] into consideration the full cost of providing a program and [were determined] with reference to fees at peer Canadian and US universities.” This is a prevalent pricing strategy, with McGill University having said the same about its 35 per cent international tuition fee hike in 2020. However, U of T’s tuition far exceeds tuition at rival Canadian institutions. U of T may be a more desirable destination for international students — a factor that appears to be priced into its higher tuition fees. U of T’s history with tuition Before 2019, undergraduate domestic tu-
ition at U of T rose at a fairly constant rate of three to four per cent annually. On January 17, 2019, the Government of Ontario announced that domestic tuition fees in 2019– 2020 would be cut by 10 per cent “[to make] university more affordable and accessible for students and families.” It also announced that tuition would remain frozen at that level for the 2020–2021 academic year — a policy that was extended this past Thursday through the 2023–2024 academic year due to a desire to ensure financial stability for Ontarians, especially given financial accessibility concerns following COVID-19. This freeze did not apply to international students, however. Since the Government of Ontario doesn’t regulate international tuition, universities are free to engage in price discrimination. At U of T, this lack of regulation has resulted in extreme disparities between undergraduate international and domestic tuition rates — with increases in international tuition outpacing domestic tuition each year. U of T increased tuition for students from outside Ontario this academic year, while the fee for Ontario residents remained the same as the previous year. Differentiation between in- and out-of-province students International students aren’t the only ones
with differentiated fees; the 2022–2023 academic year meant the beginning of differentiated fees for out-of-province students. In 2021–2022, the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities introduced a policy allowing for a three per cent increase in out-of-province domestic undergraduate tuition. This increase was applied to all undergraduate programs in the 2022–2023 academic year, although many U of T students argued the two-tier domestic fee system was regionally divisive. This kind of price differentiation is a common practice, with McGill differentiating tuition by province as well. Several American universities also differentiate tuition for in-state and out-of-state students. Even with this new change, however, out-of-province students still pay much less than international students. At U of T, the tuition for out-of-province students in the Faculty of Arts and Science for the 2022–2023 school year was $6,280, while international students paid $59,320. A Canadian context Undergraduate international students at several top Canadian universities pay tuition fees far greater than domestic students, but there’s still notable variation between institutions. Among Times Higher Education’s (THE) top 10 Canadian universities in 2023, the mean tuition for undergraduate international
arts and science students was $39,681.26, with a standard deviation — which measures how far values lie from the mean — of $9,833.72. The rankings are determined by 13 performance indicators, measuring institution research, teaching, knowledge transfer, and international outlook. U of T ranks first in the THE rankings and has the highest international tuition fees by a large margin — U of T’s undergraduate international tuition for students in the Faculty of Arts and Science (FAS) in fall 2022 was $59,320.01. That’s almost two standard deviations greater than the mean. The top four universities on the THE list are U of T, McGill University, the University of British Columbia (UBC), and McMaster University — each of which is one of the top 100 universities in the world according to the THE 2023 World University Rankings. U of T ranks 18th in the world, McGill 40th, UBC 46th, and McMaster 85th. The average undergraduate international tuition of McGill, UBC, and McMaster is $43,121.06, with a meager standard deviation of $262.19. When U of T is added to the pool, the mean tuition becomes $47,170.80, and the standard deviation is $7,018.02. Continued on page 6