University fees

As a co-op student in Mathematics at the University of Waterloo, I am obliged to pay co-op fees over eight academic terms. In any given term, the co-op fee is the same for all co-op students regardless of where they are in first year, fourth year, or anywhere in between. This term's co-op fee is listed as $609. It seemed like a large sum, and I decided to look back at my previous statements to see how much the fee used to be. Here is what I have paid:

Fall 2006: $510.00
Winter 2007: $510.00
Fall 2007: $535.00
Spring 2008: $560.00
Winter 2009: $560.00
Fall 2009: $587.00
Winter 2010: $587.00
Spring 2010: $609.00

I'd completely forgotten that the termly co-op fee was so much lower when I started university. Roughly a 20% increase in 4 years (19.41% to be more accurate), it just didn't make sense. Yes, the Illustrative Life Table that the SOA provides for its exams assumes an annual interest rate of 6%, but surely that can't even be close to reality! I decided to do a little bit of math.

I vaguely remembered hearing somewhere that the annual inflation rate can range from 2-3% per annum. Assuming the high end, 3%, the fee should have gone up by 12.55% over 4 years. In this case, the co-op fee should be $574 now.

Then I went to the inflation calculator provided by the Bank of Canada.

To my surprise, the answer turned out to be a mere $545.96. Round that up to $546, and there's a $63 difference between the expected and actual fees. Co-op fees don't seem to fall under any of "food, shelter, furniture, clothing, transportation, and recreation", but the hefty increases still go unexplained. Where is the extra money going? Updating the system at the heart of the co-op program?


While discussing these numbers with S, it hit me that I could do the same thing with tuition fees, too. I decided to look at the 1A Co-op Mathematics tuition for Canadian citizens and permanent residents, assuming a 5-course workload. The U of Waterloo registrar's office website has fee schedules dating back to Fall 2007, and anything before that I gathered from my own statements from first year, as well as a friend's statement.

A grand total of 19.30% increase over 4 years, averaging 4.5% a year. Heck, GICs only yield a fraction of that interest these days.

Even with my salary slowly increasing with each co-operative work term, it's no surprise I felt more and more strapped for cash as the years went by. At this rate, "one of these days, we'll catch up to the US tuition," to quote J. One of these days may just be when we are parents of soon-to-be university students....

What is your take on your tuition "inflation"?



Addendum: It seems that Statistics Canada agrees with my findings.