Students discovering they need to pay beyond costs highlighted on website.

Lately, some students have expressed concerns about inconsistencies in their tuition fees at George Brown College (GBC).
Hinal Damania, a student at GBC’s accelerated Social Service Worker program, shared with the Student Association’s (SA) Academic Support that she was charged with an unforeseen $4,000 in her final semester.
“As international students, we’re supposed to pay the whole year fees before coming here. So, we assumed it was what it was on website, it was like $18,000 something…we paid it all at once,” Damania shared.
In January of this year, at the beginning of her last semester in the program, Damania received an email from the college that she had a $4,000 balance to pay.
She shared speaking with various people at the college, including her admissions officer, until she finally received a reasoning for this discrepancy.
“They told me was that in my offer letter, I have an estimate fee breakdown, which is not really fixed… It was like [an] $18,000 breakdown, but then in a very sneaky way. It was written on whatever page that this fee does not include your one semester that you’re going to be doing in May. And then on the website, it’s the same thing,”
Damania’s concern is that the college was not clear and upfront about the total fees of the program.
She had to pay this additional fee within 20 days to retain her place in the program.
She requested for an extension to pay the additional fees but was told that she would be charged a late fee.
“It’s very bothersome… taking my example, $4,000 in 20 days is impossible for anyone to gather,” she said.
Damania was not the only one in her class who went through this issue.
“I have one friend who is an international student, and she faced this similar situation. I had like $4,000 but she [has] like $5,000 for some reason, but I understand it’s like, if she paid less than $18,000 when she came here… but I just know that she had like $5,000 to pay.”
However, it was mostly only international students in the program who were faced with this large change in their fees.
Emily Mowat, a domestic students in the same program said, “We had like a six-week session in May to June and then full year, starting in September of last year, and I guess the fee looked like the full fee was to pay for the whole thing. I did see a little bit of discrepancy in the invoice that was sent to our email, and then actually what was posted on StuView.”
Mowat shared that she had to pay around $26 to keep up with these discrepancies.
“I remember talking to people in the May to June [session] they had different numbers that they had to pay despite being domestic students as well,” she added.
Diana Cortes, academic coordinator at the SA, spoke with some of the students facing this concern including Damania.
Cortes identified the main issue as being lack of clarity in the information posted by the college.
“Because we have different conceptions and because not all the social structures are the same in the educational environment everywhere around the globe, I think it’s really important that you set some kind of principles of transparency and clear information for international students. We also know that there’s many agencies trying to enroll the students and they [do not] provide enough information for the students to be prepared,” Cortes said.
Damania said that the full fees of the program were not easily accessible on the website and could mislead students in the future too.
Mowat shared similar thoughts.
“I think that their process is a bit confusing. And I don’t think that it needs to be as confusing as it is, [instead] of being really transparent about their fees.”
This discrepancy in fees, in addition to the already existing fee difference between domestic and international students, adds to the financial burdens of international students.
“As international students, we have already taken so much loan before coming here. So that was my biggest concern. I did not even tell my parents about this whole process,” Damania said. “Because of all this, my stress has been increased, I was unable to sleep at night, and I already work like two jobs on minimum wage.”
Affected by this issue suddenly, Damania hopes that future students do not have to undergo the same stress.
The Dialog contacted multiple college departments for comment, however, a representative could not be reached before the time of publication.