If schools teach students to plan ahead, why don’t they practice what they preach?
While the future of tuition in Nova Scotia is still a little uncertain, the New Brunswick government seems to be taking the opposite approach. N.B. wants to develop a four-year post-secondary funding plan to help students more easily plan how they will pay for school.
The ironic thing is that New Brunswick is saying they were inspired by the very memorandum of understanding that is currently up for debate in Nova Scotia. That province announcement today showed that the three-year tuition freeze is no longer a priority and tuition will be rising next year. By how much will likely vary from institution to institution and from year to year. Not something that is all that helpful to students trying to planning ahead.
Marilyn More, N.S.’s minister of advanced education, said the government will be capping tuition increases at three per cent. This means the government still doesn’t have a long-term strategy for post-secondary education; they just want to ensure it doesn’t balloon up out of control again.
It’s no secret that university tuition is high, and growing faster than it ever has. A little stability will make financial planning for students a lot easier. While this proposal is a good start, the problem comes in four years when the deal is up and the province’s whims change again.
And students always lose in that scenario.