By Вen Li
In the wake of September 11, global economic malaise and a multi-million dollar budget deficit in the next two years, the University of Calgary regime has instituted differential tuition to rationalize its finances. Some expensive programs will now cost more to attend than others. Surprisingly the fiscally conservative regime learned this practice from such bastions of social fiscal policy as British Columbia and Ontario, where paying more for some kinds of professional education is the norm.
Visitors to the campus will observe some frosh being introduced to the real world this fall as they become the first to pay differential tuition. The screams of pre-professional students will resound across campus as they cut back on their Perrier and Grey Poupon, since their education will no longer be subsidized as much by the rest of us.
Some in the peanut gallery have criticized differential tuition for lessening the wholesale distribution of wealth on campus. Fortunately for the regime, the Students’ Union has been largely ineffective in blocking differential tuition, though in the distant past they succeeded in mitigating tuition increases. The elaborately staged Tent City refugee crisis created by the SU in Mar. 2003 may have pushed the regime to institute more bursaries for those in need. The SU also claims to have extracted concessions from the regime, letting students already in Law, Medicine and MBA programs continue at non-differentiated tuition rates.
Under differential tuition, Law students will pay $7,752 this year, and future doctors owe $9,932, compared to regular undergraduates who will pay $4,280. MBA students will pay $8,310 this year.