As the 2020 fall semester is set to begin at Sheridan College, some international students are unhappy with rising tuition costs, even as COVID-19 forces the school to move to online program delivery in many courses. To add to their upset, these returning international students are seeing tuition fees increase while fees for domestic students are reduced. “I have been feeling uncomfortable with the changes in my fees. It feels like the school and the government don’t care about international students that much. It was promising that they will give proper education and services, but at this moment, they should give financial support to international students too”, says Soohyun Son, an international student from South Korea studying illustration at Sheridan College. A comparison of invoice fee estimates for an international and a domestic student enrolled in the Honours Bachelor of Illustration program for 2020-2021 showed the international student paying just over $12,000 in tuition fees per semester and the domestic student paying $3,720 a semester. Last fall the domestic student’s tuition fee was the same and the international student paid $11,722. Both students pay more than $1,000 in additional program fees, ancillary costs and charges each semester. Carol Altilia, Sheridan’s Vice-President of Student Engagement and Enrolment Management, said changes in tuition fees for international students were made by the provincial government in 2019-2020 session. The tuition fee for international students was raised by three per cent, she said, while reduced for domestic students by 10 per cent. These changes were frozen for the 2020-2021 school year. Many domestic students are not satisfied with decreases in their education costs, especially in light of the switch to online instruction. “It is not cheaper for Sheridan to run a course remotely because remote instruction still requires professors to deliver the course, undertake assessments, evaluations and advising, provide office hours and offer the same type of support that would typically be involved in-person,” Altilia said. Some students have been thinking of taking a gap year to avoid paying so much for an online program. However, students could risk losing their seat in a program as the number of seats each year is limited
“It’s hard for me to think about taking a gap year now considering I just came back from a gap year. But at the same time, it is hard to pay $10,000 for an online program, especially when there’s so much uncertainty in the job market amid the pandemic,”said Abdelrehman Saeid, a Sheridan student in the graduation year of the illustration program. An online student petition was created and directed at the Ontario legislative assembly demanding changes to fee structure during the pandemic as classes are being conducted online.
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