Newfoundland and Labrador had the highest rate of increase of university tuition fees for international students from the 2017/2018 to 2018/2018 academic year, but the province still has the lowest fees in the country, according to an analysis of Statistics Canada data that uses to track tuition fees.

The increase of tuition fees was a response to cuts in government funding for Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN)’s operation budget in 2015, said Sofia Descalzi, the Canadian Federation of Students’ provincial chairperson.

New international students in Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) paid at least 28 per cent more than those enrolled in the years before. Despite the increase for new students, tuition fees for students who were enrolled before fall 2018 will not increase until 2021.

David Sorensen, the university’s communications manager, said the government has provided additional grant money to cover tuition increase for any domestic students but not for international students.

“While we have experienced budget reductions for several years, we have focused these as much as possible on the administrative side of the university,” he said.

Christine Neill, an economics professor at Wilfrid Laurier University who studies tuition fees, said provinces usually don’t fund universities for each international student in universities like they do with domestic students.

“For domestic students, someone in their family or themselves is usually paying taxes in order to provide support for government revenues in the province. In the case of international students, they don’t,” she said.

Neill also said international students are not part of the government’s constituents. This means the government doesn’t have to provide the same services to international students as they do with their constituents.

While the province saw a spike in tuition fees from last year, the province still has the lowest tuition fees in the country.

International students, Neill said, usually are less affected by tuition fee increase.

“People who are studying internationally don’t, in general, come from low-income families. The evidence suggests that if they think quality of the education is good enough, they can afford that,” she said.

Descalzi said the tuition fee increase for international students isn’t fair.

“International students already pay an exorbitant amount for the same education than other students,” she said. “International students should not be bearing the cost of education down to their shoulders because of the decisions the provincial government has made.”

With the tuition fee increase, Neill said, international students will try to look for other ways to support themselves.

“Based on my research, people do try to increase their hours of work in response to tuition fee increase. It might mean that they will try to find employment at higher rates than they would otherwise,” she said.

Despite the increase of tuition fees for international students, Sorensen said, the university has increased services for international students like the renovation of the university’s Internationalization Office.

“We’ve had some budget challenges, but we’re making sure students are getting the best support possible,” Sorensen said. “In the next few months, the international office will be moving from its current location to a renovated space and will expand programs to adapt to the needs of current students – not only international students but the needs of local students to gain intercultural competence.”