The University of the Commonwealth Caribbean (UCC) has imposed an increase of 55% to its tuition fees, and the students are unable to afford such a drastic fee increase. The fact that UCC is a privately owned institution does not justify the fairness of this raise, and we are actively advocating for the regulation of their increase rate to no more than a 10% increase per annum. As a student body, we are not against a fee raise, however it is the significance of the increase (55%) which is unreasonable, unattainable, and inconsiderate.

Prior to the increase, students paid $30,000 per 3-credit module. Full-time students doing five (5) 3-credit modules would pay $150,000 per semester, and part-time students doing three (3) 3-credit modules would pay $90,000. A 55% increase moved the previous price to $46,500, which would see full-time students facing costs of $232,500 per semester, and part-timers paying $139,500. This is a HUGE increase in the eyes of students, and with many of us being middle/lower working-class individuals, we cannot afford these new prices. Many of us face becoming college dropouts, seeking transfers, downgrading our Bachelors’ programs to Associates’, and many will have to go into large amounts of debt as a result of this tuition fee hike. 

They have ‘revised’ their decision by lowering the cost per 3-credit module to $39,00 for online students (to be in effect Summer 2023), however we believe that price is still too high. For hybrid students (learning both online and face-to-face), the increase remains at 55%. They have left our root concerns unaddressed and continue to avoid engagement and negotiation with the student body. This petition expresses our demand for an increase of no more than 10%!

Other pressing issues with the institution include:

Poor customer service

Late grade publication

The school’s flawed exam resit policy

High resit and miscellaneous fees

The Business and Economic Statistics exam issue