New tuition deadlines suddenly introduced by the college earlier this year and skyrocketing living prices in Victoria are two issues that targeted Camosun students during 2022. To combat these issues, the Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) has negotiated with the college on their new tuition deadlines and campaigned alongside the British Columbia Federation of Students (BCFS) and Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) for higher income thresholds on BC’s repayment plan and the elimination of student loan interest on the federal level.
CCSS external executive Jessie Niikoi says the CCSS’ biggest accomplishment of 2022 was negotiating with the college on their new tuition deadline.
“For the CCSS, the one thing we are so proud of being able to do is have negotiations surrounding the tuition deadline,” says Niikoi. “[The deadline change] was very surprising and came at the wrong time, so we were able to negotiate and decide that if you pay half your tuition, it’s better, and you won’t be dropped from your classes.”
Looking ahead, the CCSS hopes to avoid a tuition increase for international students like what recently happened elsewhere.
“Right now, we’re going to keep an eye on things that are happening in the college, especially on tuition increase because one of our sister schools, which is Emily Carr, just had their tuition increase happen, and it affected a lot of people because their tuition went up 30 percent for the next group of international students,” says Niikoi. “That’s one of the things that are happening right now over there, so that’s why we’re going to keep an eye on things that are happening here to make sure we don’t have those same things happening as well.”
Alongside avoiding another tuition increase for international students, the CCSS wants to run a campaign to make students and the college more aware of how expensive school is for international students.
“And then also making sure to work with the college more on various campaigns,” she says, “so we’re going to run the international student campaign that’s run by the BCFS next semester to bring awareness for how expensive tuition is.”
The CCSS also wants to create more student engagement this year by getting students involved in activities and campaigns that impact them.
“We’re hoping to get more student engagement with our people and be able to do more things with them, so we’re going to keep running our Club Days, and just being able to do things that will teach our students about things that impact them,” says Niikoi. “And then also celebrate the things that we were able to achieve over the past year. So, having those and having celebrations that celebrate the diversity on campus, we’re just looking forward to that.”