Dear UBC,
I am a 2nd year student at Sauder and today I am an unsatisfied student. I’ll just be direct, I feel like I’m being robbed. Please explain yourself.
Below is a screenshot of my tuition for 2010W Term 2 tuition.
All of my 3 credit courses cost $669.42, I have 2 Arts faculty electives: Japanese 200 level and social psychology.
Below is a screenshot of my friend’s tuition for 2010W Term 1 tuition. He is a 2nd year Arts student.
All of his 3 credit courses cost $451.80. Notably, PSYC 305A which is a personality psychology class.
We are both 2nd year students, entered in the same year, same age, same citizenship, but different faculties (ok he also took personality psyc and I took social psyc but either way…) How is this fair? Even if I took PSYC 305A 002 with the same prof in the same room, at the same time, learning the same things, I would still be paying $217.62 more.
In first year, both of our 3 credit courses cost $442.95. Excluding first year, to graduate with a BCOM we need a minimum of an additional 18 credits of non-commerce electives. Without factoring in annual tuition increases and tuition increases due to being in a higher year (which doesn’t make sense because arts doesn’t get that increase,) and the “time value of money” for you finance kids out there, this translates to $1305.72.
I suppose you can say that is a small price relative to a whole degree but that doesn’t mean it is justified.
Perhaps Sauder students should have to pay more because of our teachers/facilities. No, that doesn’t justify why we have to pay more for courses not in our faculty. I’m sorry, but this feels like robbery. I paid it, but that doesn’t mean I signed up for it. The school did not tell me I was paying more for my courses by being a Sauder student.
UBC, I’d like some answers.
Sincerely,
Paulina Tsui
@readers, What can I do about this? I actually don’t know, someone please help me with a next step.
By the way, does anyone know how much non-commerce students have to pay when taking a commerce course?
Financial tip to incoming business students: take summer school in first year. You get to pay first year fees for those courses and knock of some requirements at the same time.
At least you get to take courses outside your faculty. No one outside of Sauder is allowed to take BCOM courses unless they are pursuing a Minor in Commerce. This is also not fair. You don’t understand how many students outside of Sauder see the benefits of learning courses taught in Sauder but are unable to, while Sauder students are allowed to take almost any course they would like in other faculties.
Just to clarify here, are you suggesting that you didn’t actually read your fees when you signed up for the Sauder school of business? And after attending that [insert adjective here] institution, you noticed a fee hike, *didn’t* go looking for an explanation, and yet posted a whine on the internet?
More specifically, you didn’t check the UBC website, where (roughly) 30 seconds of checking pages after searching for ‘tuition’ turned up this:
http://www.calendar.ubc.ca/vancouver/index.cfm?tree=14,266,772,0
(updated here: http://www.students.ubc.ca/coursesreg/tuition-fees-deposits/tuition-fees/ )
A complete breakdown by faculty of tuition fees. Yes, that’s right, your fees for a particular course are based on the Faculty that you are a member of. Why? I have no idea. Why don’t you discuss it with UBC prior to ranting about it though?
It clearly states:
Commerce (Year 1): $150.60 (per credit)
Commerce (Years 2 to 4): $223.14
Yes: you pay more than *any* other faculty (bar Pharmacy, once you factor in the first year).
And it sucks to be you. But… Let’s face it: you chose to go to Business School. You chose to sign up to something without checking the facts. Without checking the contract you were signing.
On the upside, once you have a business degree, you can look forward to being at the bottom end of performance of management (as compared to those with a flat BA). But at least you’ll pull in *about* the same money as someone with a flat BA. Definitely worth those higher fees (http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/degrees.asp).
But still. Glad to see that your time at Sauder has *really* sharpened your research skills…
@Eric, you’re right, there is some unfairness in that as well considering that we do get to take a bunch of courses from other faculties. I saw in your profile that you are considering minoring in commerce, do you know how much your courses would cost if you did?
So understand your pain Paulina, and thats without the tuition increases coming next year too!
On a side note.. BCom students can’t do double major apart from one with Computer Science.. I’ve asked the UGO about this and they said it was issues with the cost of credits and what not.. So we’re limited in a way too..
On the other hand, would you be willing to have your tuition increase by $200 per credit just to take commerce courses..?
Sauder boasts about the services they give to the students through the UGO, advising and what not, and that’s what makes our credits more expensive.. Why don’t they charge the credits the same as all other courses, and then charge another ‘Administration, advising, misc. costs’ and have the same price for credits?
@Paulina From students I have talked to, I would be paying the standard fee commerce students pay, but I am not certain. And to answer @Douglas, I would pay the extra $200 because it is an investment towards my career. Having a Minor in Commerce gives the Arts student the edge over students without it if they wish to pursue a career in business.
As for commerce students paying higher fees, I do not think it is totally unreasonable because a BCOM degree is more well-regarded compared to some other degrees, for the same reason that many Economics students wish to be in Sauder if they wish to go into Accounting or Finance in the future. Why get an economics degree when one can get a BCOM Major in Accounting/Finance? Employers do, as many studies have indicated, regard BCOM degrees more, not that I think employers would see a candidate with an Arts degree and put them in the bottom of the pile, but discrimination exists. It is for this reason that the extra tuition is a chance to get that edge over someone else.
However, I do agree that Sauder overcharges students and without a satisfactory reason for doing so, students should not blindly accept these annual tuition increases. Perhaps the reason for not increasing the admin costs is because, psychologically, seeing a $1400 increase straight out is much less appealing than $200 over several courses.
My 2 cents.
This money goes to the extra stuff you get out of being a commerce student – free clipboard at the beginning of the year anyone??
Jokes aside, the Career Centre is a valuable resource, and one that is only available to Sauder students. You should start taking advantage of it now.
Just be glad you’re not an international student.
@Chusisis Arts gets their own clipboard too! I really do hope that my $1300 isn’t ALL going to the career center of which I have never heard of anyone using aside from for COMM 299’s resume writing, but I am only in 2nd year so I’m sure it will prove to be useful eventually. For the time being, maybe I should just try to mooch all the free printing I can while their system is buggy. JKJK =P
@Eric As a side note, something that I didn’t know about my degree until I went to those info session things, BCOM is the major, accounting/finance is just the “specialization.” It does sound like just a label but even the advisors were saying “it doesn’t matter if you don’t get the one you want, remember it is only a 15 credit difference” In other words, in terms of minimal requirements, we take more courses outside of commerce than we do in our specialization.
Can I see these studies? I don’t understand why a business degree would be regarded higher unless the job itself is geared for a person with business training. Your degree and marks are only the initial screening, if you make it to the interview, it is a matter of skills and fit into the company’s culture is it not?
I found that when I was in Asia, business degrees seemed to be regarded as what the “kids who don’t know what they want to do but couldn’t get into any better faculties” study. Perhaps I just met the wrong people though. However, whether a degree is viewed as “better” or not is society’s problem. It is still discrimination for us to pay different prices if we are taking the exact same courses.
@Douglas and Eric
I agree with Eric that for psychological purposes it is easier on the eyes, but then again, by lumping whatever that money is going towards into the money we are paying for a course is a lot more than shady. Do you go to the grocery store receipts say $50 of groceries and not break it down? Maybe a $2 snack got stuck in there that you didn’t want. Or a $20 blender (how much are blenders? I don’t know.) Ok, just $2, but when your bill for university is $35000+, I’d like to know what I’m paying for.
This may not be true, but I heard from a lot of my commerce friends that those increased tuition fees are being used to fund the construction projects on Sauder buildings (like the one that was going on for the past year at Henry Angus). This is why you are paying so much simply for being that faculty, as whenever a faculty building is constructed or renovated, it is the students of that faculty that help fund it. Your tuition will drop back down to the 450-500s when the construction is over I believe 🙂
@Brian, sorry I don’t know why your comment didn’t get automatically posted unlike everyone else’s until now.
In response to your comment, no I did not actually read the tuition page you linked to when I signed up for Sauder because it wouldn’t have affected my decision to go into Commerce at UBC. It doesn’t change the fact that I should know why the fees are the way they are. Perhaps if my faculty “sharpened my research skills” more I would be able to figure out why. I can’t tell if your last comment was just meant to poke at my ignorance or an indication of your dislike for Sauder. But thanks, that is going to sit in my head all day.