Held Up at Penpoint.

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.