How much is university actually costing you, survey asks

Students at UPEI are being asked to fill out a survey about the real costs of education.

It was created by the studentunion at Mount Allison University, and is being distributed by the studentunion at UPEI.

The inspiration for the survey started when Kevin Wong, the Mount Allisonstudent unionvice-president of finance and operations,was exploring the high cost of textbooks.

"You know what tuition is ... you come in in your first-year and you know tuition is ...$9,000. But you don't really think about rent, you don't really think about theother costs. It's looking at that bigger picture ... what percentage of that is textbooks," he said.

"Think of the cost of education as a brick wall. Each one of the bricks is made up of a differentcost that students face, and it's really just getting a better picture of how many of those bricks are textbooks, how many are rent ... to kind of help us to better advocate on behalf of students."

Wongwould like Maritime universities to offer more open educational resources, but thought he would start by getting a sense of the overall costs students are facing.

Wong said there are questions on the survey covering a range of issues.

• Cost of commuting to school.
• Student loans.
• Living costs.
• Academic performance and scholarships.
• Textbook costs.

Wonghopes 400 students between the two universities fill out the survey. Theplan is to re-survey in January, and crunch the numbers over the summer.

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With files from Laura Chapin