Timeline of Events
The process for either approving or rejecting tuition hike requests from the University of Manitoba is somewhat complicated and a little mysterious, so we thought we would share what information we have on how we got to where we are now. We will update this page as events continue to develop.
Late 2009/Early 2010: Ether the University or the Provincial government approached the other and proposed these extraordinary increases. We aren’t sure who approached who first, as both sides try to dodge the blame by sticking it on the other, but the end result is the same: the University got the green light to start crafting their tuition fee increase proposals. To the best of our knowledge, this conversation happened sometime prior to February 2010.
The University has repeatedly referred to this as a ‘window’ of time in which they can try and get one-off tuition fee hikes approved by the provincial government, whereas the Minister of Advanced Education and Literacy, Diane McGifford, has stated this option for the University to apply for extraordinary fee increases is simply the continuation of a similar policy during the tuition fee freeze.
The University informed the various Deans and Directors in several faculties of their opportunity to request an increase in fees.
February-April 2010: The Faculty of Dentistry actually floated their proposal with students in February, well before the other faculties did so. The other faculties followed over the next two months, with the bulk of the proposals coming to light in late March/early April. Some proposals only surfaced during the final week of classes, with the Faculty of Law holding a public forum on the increases at the end of the last day of exams. The Faculty of Graduate Studies informed students about the proposal on April 22nd and faculty-hosted town hall meetings took place in early May.
April 2010: Representatives from UMSU, CFS-Manitoba, and the University of Manitoba Graduate Students’ Association met with both the Premier as well as the Minister of Advanced Education and Literacy Diane McGifford and Sid Rogers, Secretary of COPSE, in April to discuss our opposition to these increases; we were told at that meeting that the increase proposals would be tested against six criteria, which are a modified version of the ones used during the tuition fee freeze.
May 2010: The plan, as far as we have been able to determine, was to have all the proposals into the University President’s office by April 30th, with the University compiling them and formally submitting them to the Council on Post-Secondary Education at the beginning of May. We do not know which proposals ended up being included in the final package, as the Council on Post-Secondary Education refuses to publicly release the proposals they received from the University of Manitoba.
The Council on Post-Secondary Education met on Thursday, May 13th, to discuss the proposals and according to the Winnipeg Free Press met again on May 27th to discuss the proposals, and presumably have come to a decision.
June 2010: The provincial government announces that 10 out of the 12 tuition fee proposals have been rejected, either by COPSE or the provincial government. Including the withdrawn-under-pressure Graduate student fee increase, that means that 11 of the 13 proposals have been rejected. While the two proposals that have gone through are still obviously not ideal, the proposals that were defeated should be seen as a victory by students and student organizing!
September 2010: MBA and Dentistry students will be facing increases to their fees come September – 25% for the MBA program and 20% for Dentistry.
2011 and Beyond: UMSU has no doubt that at least some of these proposals will come up again in the future, and students stand ready to defeat them when they do!