Tuition fees at Laurentian University are going up for some students.
The university wasn’t able to increase tuition fees for post-secondary students who are from Ontario because these fees have been frozen by the province.
However, Laurentian’s board of governors voted at their June 18 meeting to increase tuition fees for domestic non-Ontario students by three per cent, which is the maximum allowed by the province.
Laurentian also voted at the same meeting to increase tuition fees for international students by five per cent for students in three different programs — computer science, engineering and business administration and commerce.
The tuition fee hikes come as Laurentian is in the midst of restructuring after declaring it is insolvent this past winter.
With the added tuition fee increase, international computer science students at Laurentian will pay $27,258 for the 2021-22 school year, engineering students $35,453 and business administration and commerce $27,840.
Laurentian said it based the increases on comparisons of tuition fees charged by other Ontario universities.
According to information provided by Laurentian, the Sudbury university doesn’t have the highest international student tuition rates in the province, nor does it have the lowest.
For Laurentian's commerce program, for example, international students paid $26,514 this past school year (before the aforementioned tuition fee increase). Queen’s University charged $51,274 for the same program, while Algoma University charged $18,287.
Because the province doesn’t cap tuition fees for international students, universities use funds brought in by their tuition fees as welcome sources of cash. They are charged much higher tuition fees than domestic students.
In general, international students are paying three or four times as much for tuition at Laurentian as their domestic counterparts.
According to LU’s website, most full-time domestic Ontario students attending Laurentian are paying $6,000 in tuition (the bill jumps to as much as $7,360 when incidental and student association fees are added in).
Tuition is higher for programs such as business administration, computer science, sports administration, engineering and architecture (students in the architecture program have the most expensive tuition, paying about $4,000 per year more).
Speaking at the June 18 meeting, Laurentian board of governors member Guy Labine wondered about the role tuition plays in international students’ decision to attend LU, and how it affects its competitiveness.
He said international students choosing to come to the university (and students in general) will play an important role in Laurentian’s recovery from its insolvency.
Laurentian president Robert Haché said it’s incumbent upon every institution across the country to do its own market analysis and determine what rates are competitive.
He said students in some countries, such as China, “see value in the price tag,” while students coming from other countries are looking for more moderate costs.
“We position ourselves sort of mid-point with the natural competitors that Laurentian would have,” Haché said.
He said international student applications this year are actually quite strong, particularly when it comes to Francophone students.
“That reflects some of the work we have been doing over the past years to try and market the programming that Laurentian has,” Haché said.
“Unfortunately, of course, we’re still at the tail end of the pandemic, so it’s impossible to say right now how much that interest will translate into our succeeding and getting people here, but I’m confident that our tuition rates are competitive and are positioning us where we need to be positioned in order to be effective and attract these students.”
