Six years in Manitoba buys a free education

Tuition deal offered to university students in attempt to keep graduates in province
JOE FRIESEN

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

WINNIPEG — University tuition in Manitoba will be virtually free for students willing to stay in the province under a policy initiative designed to stem the loss of young graduates.

A sketch of the plan was announced last month by the provincial government. It proposed tax rebates equivalent to 60 per cent of total tuition fees for graduates who spend six years in Manitoba after finishing university. Combined with existing federal and provincial tax credits, a typical Manitoba student would now receive more in tax benefits than he or she ever paid in tuition.

Under the new plan, a graduate of a four-year science program who paid $13,258 in tuition would get $7,955 back over a period of six years. That same student would also have received $3,498 in tuition tax credits and $3,379 in education tax credits during the four years of study, for a total of $14,832 in possible earned-income credits.

"I think it's a good deal, and we're pleased to be able to offer our students a good deal," said Diane McGifford, Minister of Advanced Education and Literacy.

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"We're interested in creating an environment in Manitoba that is extremely affordable and attractive to students, that will encourage students to stay here and have their families here."

But she was reluctant to trumpet the initiative, and said there are many costs to obtaining a post-secondary education.

"I would say no, it isn't free, or even close to free," Ms. McGifford said. "There are income tax deductions and deductions for the cost of living, and if you stay, there's the new tax credit plan. The part of it that would be free, according to what you suggest, is university tuition. There are other costs associated with a university education."

The province has not yet said whether the benefits will apply to graduates who move to Manitoba from other provinces.

Nor can they say how many local graduates are leaving the province, how many might stay as a result of this incentive or how much the project will cost. They say those details will be available at some point, but not now.

The province's own statistics show a small net gain of young people over the last six years, but those numbers are not broken down into graduates and non-graduates.

Manitoba's tuition fees, frozen at 1999 levels for six years, are already the third-lowest in the country at an average of $3,806. Quebec has for many years offered the country's lowest tuition fees to its own residents, but charged Canadians from outside the province substantially more. Newfoundland, with an average tuition fee of $3,056, is next lowest. Manitoba's initiative will likely make it the cheapest place to study in Canada.

New Brunswick recently announced a similar tax rebate program to attract and retain young people. Students there will be offered a 50-per-cent tax rebate, up to a maximum of $2,000 per year and $10,000 total. It will be offered to graduates from other provinces.

Less generous than the Manitoba plan, New Brunswick's rebate is expected to cost $32-million a year after the first five years, and $63-million a year after 15 years.

The Canadian Federation of Students said it opposes Manitoba's initiative because it fails to address the issue of accessibility at the front end. Students still have to pay tuition fees every year, they say, and the large initial payments discourage people from disadvantaged backgrounds from attending university.

University of Manitoba president Emoke Szathmary said she believes the barriers to a university education are more cultural than financial.

"The big goal is obviously to have more people participating in university education, particularly the lower socio-economic groups," she said. "We did an analysis of five years' worth of data based on students from Winnipeg identifying four socio-economic groups. After five years, the only group that significantly increased its proportion in the universities was the upper middle-class."

Ms. Szathmary said she would like to see 10 per cent of the student body drawn from the most disadvantaged sections of society, as is the goal at certain Ivy League universities. The current figure at the University of Manitoba is 6.9 per cent.

Ms. McGifford said she, too, would like to see the children of blue-collar workers and aboriginal people attend university in greater numbers.

The province has undertaken several initiatives to address that issue, she said, but it could be years before the results are visible.

"We've made it affordable and possible for all our students who wish to attend postsecondary education to do so. The catch is: Not all of them know that. Or maybe not all of them believe it. Because, unfortunately, there are potential students for whom postsecondary education is not part of their culture. That's something we have to change."

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