"Me sad": UBC students share their emotions as tuition hikes announced

UBC students will be hit with a tuition hike effective May 1 of this year, and the news — as you might have expected — hasn’t been received well.

Someone shared a notice on Reddit from Rella Ng, the associate vice-president of Enrolment Services and Registrar Enrolment Services at UBC, which notes that domestic undergraduate and graduate students will be seeing a 2% tuition increase. The same applies to international graduate students in research and standard programs.

Continuing international undergraduate and graduate students in programs with specialized rates will be hit with a 3% increase. New international undergraduate students and graduate students in programs with specialized rates will see a 5% increase, as will international unclassified, qualifying, visiting, access, and auditing students.

The general tone of the reaction on the UBC subreddit was, “Me sad,” which is how one Redditor reacted.

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Many students commented on the Reddit thread to say they voted against it. However, the UBC Board of Governors approved the decision.

“In other news, grass is green,” someone chimed in.

Others were snarky, with one person saying, “Congrats UBC on a raise!”

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Kareem Hassib, an elected student governor, also popped into the comments.

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Others suggested they wanted to pay more.

“Nah 3%is not enough I wanna pay triple.”

We presume they’re joking.

With the cost of living top of mind for most residents, many students are also fighting the same realities.

“The food bank lineup is going to get real long,” a Redditor said.

Some commented that the hikes seemed fair, as they were below the rate of inflation.

Tuition aside, at the beginning of this month, folks at UBC who rent student housing were informed they’d also see increases in the cost of accommodation.

Do you think the tuition hike amounts are fair?