Fees at University of Victoria residences are due for a substantial increase — and students could be facing a 13 per cent jump in September, a campus group says.
“It’s a 10-year plan,” said Greg Atkinson of the UVic Students’ Society, which is speaking out against the proposed changes.
If approved, the September boost would be followed by two years of six per cent hikes, and then seven years with four per cent increases.
The average fee for a student living in an on-campus facility is $4,094 for eight months, Atkinson said. “After the first 13 per cent increase, it’s going to go up to $4,626, and by 2017 it will be up to $5,200.”
That adds up to an increase of more than $1,000 over the next three years, he said.
If the increases are approved, costs for student housing would rise $68 a month for a single room — to $593 from $525 — in September, according to UVic. For a double room, which involves sharing with a roommate, each person would pay $52 more a month, bringing the monthly rate to about $454. Those figures do not include meal plans.
The society rates housing as the second-biggest expense for students after tuition.
The student group held a workshop on tenants’ rights Wednesday, with another session scheduled for today in the Student Union Building at 2:30 p.m., Atkinson said. “We’re having an organizing meeting where we’re hopefully going to get students that are being affected into the room, and get direction from them in terms of where we want to take this.”
The proposed increases will go to UVic’s board of governors in the spring, said Kathryn MacLeod, the university’s director of residential services.
“Our current increases for the past 10 years or more have been three [per cent annually],” MacLeod said.
UVic housing costs about 30 per cent less than the average for nine other comparable post-secondary institutions across the country, she said. The University of B.C., for example, charges $5,010 for a single dorm and $4,218 per person for a two-person dorm. At Simon Fraser, a single room is $5,536.
“Even with the increases that we’re proposing, after 10 years we’ll still be 14 per cent less than the average,” MacLeod said.
She said there are pressing issues UVic has to consider, including deferred maintenance and bringing older residential buildings up to standard. “A fair amount of our buildings were built in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, so things like roofs and siding and boilers and all of those kinds of things are coming to the end of their life.”
Problems are arising even though UVic has been spending $1 million to $2 million a year on upkeep for the buildings, MacLeod said. An estimated $81 million in refurbishment is needed over the next decade.
Also part of the situation is the fact that demand for on-campus housing is much greater than supply, she said.
“This year we had about 5,000 applications for 2,300 beds. So what we’re hoping is in about four or five years, we’d be able to build an additional residence building, as well.”
Provincial funding does not cover costs for residences, including construction.
jwbell@timescolonist
