Credit crunch: How high costs threaten student education
Pressure mounts as postsecondary students struggle to strike a work-school balance
Liam Newbigging, a fourth-year journalism student at MacEwan University, works two part-time jobs on top of his full course load to pay for rent and food. Now on the verge of graduation, he is contemplating either working or finishing his studies.
“It just takes away from the overall experience of the education,” Newbigging says. “I find I’m not going to class as much, not doing the readings as much, not trying to focus on learning as much.”
Being a working student has dire implications for the quality of the education itself, adversely affecting the value of the postsecondary proposition altogether.
“Because I am graduating soon I am going to drop my one part-time job for next semester so I will only have one part-time job, so it will take some pressure off,” says Newbigging.
Liam Newbigging, a fourth-year student at MacEwan, finds it difficult to balance his schoolwork and his two part-time jobs.
And indeed, many students do need to work. According to Moving Mountains, a 2023 report compiled by the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA), There had been a surge in student expenses throughout 2022, placing annual cost of living at $21,238.20 in addition to an average tuition of $6,361.99 per semester.
The lion’s share of these student expenses concerned accommodation, but, school-related and miscellaneous expenses certainly don’t lag too far behind.
Source: Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, 2023
According to CASA, 56 per cent of students surveyed relied on savings—either theirs or their parents. Many rely on additional sources of funding like government loans or working.
What this indicates is that students without the privilege of financial security feel forced to resort to working to cover their costs, and may have to take on government debt.
Source: Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, 2023
But, Newbigging isn’t the only student at MacEwan University with something to say about the cost-of-living crisis.
Darcy Hoogers, Vice President Academic of MacEwan University’s student association, operates on a mandate that focuses on helping to ease the burden of the cost of living for students.
“It’s mainly to do with educational materials,” Hoogers says, “specifically textbooks, and how the institution [MacEwan] can either get to a place where general educational materials are not as debilitating for the average student.”
For Hoogers, that means a shift in thinking about how course materials are distributed and accessed.
Darcy Hoogers, SAMU’s Vice President Academic, thinks MacEwan should be doing more to support students who are struggling financially.
He favours a more open pedagogical approach which allows instructors more academic freedom in picking their learning material. He believes that this would provide more money for the unforeseen costs of student life, such as transportation and laptops.
One of the things that MacEwan is doing specifically has been to direct investment towards developing open educational resources (OERs) with instructors and beginning to develop plans for a textbook grant which would mean, according to Hoogers, that students and instructors are less beholden to publishing company costs.
These are small steps towards easing the burden of cost of living.
Still many, including Hoogers, share that post-secondary education is becoming inaccessible.
“If the choice is going into the workforce right away or taking on a bunch of debt that will follow you,” says Hoogers, “The benefits of post-secondary certainly are diminished there, which I think is a shame.”
The Rising Tide of Tuition
Worrying about rising post-secondary tuition costs in Canada is not a new, but the numbers keep climbing.
According to Statistics Canada, from 2020–25, annual tuition fees for domestic students have been gradually approaching $10,000, and for international undergraduates, figures have now surpassed $30,000.
Source: Statistics Canada, 2024
While it is true that tuition fees for international graduates and undergraduates naturally trend higher than that of their domestic counterparts, the data shows no signs of stagnation, and fees are poised to reach the $40,000 mark within the next five years based on their current trajectory.
Though, as dire as the rising tide of tuition may be, it’s not necessarily all bad news when it comes time to repay, particularly for low-income individuals.
The Canadian government offers what’s called the repayment assistance plan to those who satisfy the eligibility requirements, and out of its 285,000 first-year recipients, 82 per cent made zero payments.
Source: Employment and Social Development Canada, 2023
Textbooks: Worth their Weight?
MacEwan Univerity’s bookstore doesn’t allow students to access its textbook section.
But it’s not solely about covering the escalating costs of tuition. For Newbigging and others, questions linger about the necessity of secondary expenses like textbooks, which are often stipulated as course requirements. In the educational context, the implication of such a mandate is a kind of fundamentalism that—if not obliged—might negatively affect educational outcomes.
However, the prospect isn’t without significant financial burden, as textbook prices are also on the rise. But why? As The Eyeopener reports, inflation, labour and material costs, and technological expenses all factor into the increase of textbook pricing, the brunt of which falls upon Canadian students to bear.
As a broader yet pertinent example from just a single institution like the Toronto Metropolitan University, students can—depending on their program of study—be expected to pay anywhere from $1,400 to $9,400 in textbook and supply costs—this is to the exclusion of tuition fees.
To look even further, Canada’s Consumer Price Index indicates that over the period of a single year—2023 to 2024—pricing for school textbooks and supplies increased by a total of 4.4 points, equating to an increase of 2.7 per cent.
Source: Statistics Canada, 2024
In 2018, the University of Alberta’s Student’s Association showed that increased textbook costs heightened student stress, with many citing the inability to buy textbooks as the primary reason for a declining academic performance.
The most troubling revelation was that some students felt forced to decide between purchasing groceries and purchasing a book.
Source: University of Alberta’s Students’ Association, 2018
Many Canadian post-secondary students have to get creative when it comes to sourcing their textbooks. Some turn to friends for previously owned copies, while others use-books or illegally download the text or look to alternative resources online.
Newbigging’s approach is to look at textbooks on a case-by-case basis.
Source: University of Alberta’s Students’ Association, 2018
“I’m pretty strategic about textbooks,” he says. “Because if it’s only like, ‘Okay, we’re going to read the textbook a little bit, but most of the assignments are going to be drawing from other things…I probably just won’t even buy the textbook.’”
A Technological Zeitgeist
MacEwan University has several computer labs located in Allard Hall.
Despite the educational system’s continued reliance on physical textbooks, an increasing preference towards the computerization of course material necessitates postsecondary students not only purchase the recommended laptop—costing upwards of $1,000, depending on the institution—but also recommended software, like subscriptions to Adobe’s creative suite.
Source: Adobe Creative Cloud, 2024
Adobe does offer student pricing for their software suite, and some educational institutions offer access that’s cheaper still. MacEwan University offers a 12 month subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud to students for $199 via their online bookstore.
Ultimately, they still remain as additional costs, and as Newbigging states, these premium tools are absolutely fundamental to a student’s postsecondary success.
“You need that laptop to succeed in this program [Bachelor of Communication Studies] to do all the work you need to do,” he says. “So then that cost is also put on the students.”
Many students find themselves subject to financial surprises throughout their studies. From damaged laptops to pricey hard drives, and on-campus theft these are unexpected costs that can be difficult to overcome.
Searching for a Solution
Hoogers, a student loan recipient himself, says that its common for students to take on debt, and it is one of the reasons he things a university education has begun to feel devalued.
“That’s a massive barrier, and that’s not good overall for any kind of society,” he says. “It can lead to a level of disillusionment with the entire education system.”
Hooger admits that there is no easy one-size-fits-all fix.
“There needs to be more funding towards post secondary institutions so students don’t have to shoulder the costs of budget cuts, and entering post secondary isn’t one where you basically have to commit to student loans, which last 20 years,” he says.
Newbigging feels a similar sentiment when it comes to finding a balance between a student life and maintaining a reasonable standard of living.
“It’s funny,” says Newbigging, “MacEwan is considered an affordable university and used to kind of pride itself on being a bit cheaper. But the school doesn’t seem to make those claims anymore. I think that’s telling.”
This story was a collaborative assignment for BCSC 327: Online Journalism.
Writers: Jacob Abbot, David Falk, Kelsie Howlett
Data: Julietta Harvey, Ilyas Mohammed, Sophia Konrad
Multimedia: Lucy Gordon, Jacklien Harash, Riley Turgeon
