The University of the West Indies (UWI) has advised that for the 2014-2015 academic year, there will be an increase in tuition fees.
According to a statement issued yesterday, the UWI said its council “approved a small percentage increase in tuition fees for its Mona and Open campuses for the upcoming 2014 -15 academic year.”
The increase was recommended and approved at the UWI Council’s annual business meeting in Nassau, Bahamas in April. The release said the increase had already been endorsed by the sub-committee on tuition fees.
The new structure will; see students attending the Mona Campus in Jamaica paying 3.07 per cent more in the combined Faculties and Advanced Nursing; 2.92 per cent more in the Faculty of Medical Sciences and 2.58 per cent in the Faculty of Law. The release said the inflation rate for the preceding year was 9.7 per cent, but it was projected that the campus would recover the mandated 20 per cent of economic costs with that level of increase.
Meanwhile, at UWI’s Open Campus where tuition fees are charged on a per course basis, undergraduate and pre-university programmes will go up from US$300 to US$360 per 3-credit course. In the specially admitted and graduate programmes fees per 3-credit course will increase from US$550 to US$660.
However, over at the St Augustine Campus in Trinidad and Tobago, fees will remain at current levels (ie what obtained in academic year 2013/2014), the release said, where the economic cost recovery ratio would be 18.20 per cent while inflation was projected at 4.4 per cent.
Similarly, there will be no change in tuition fees at the Cave Hill Campus in Barbados. However, recovery of economic costs was projected to be 20 per cent with the Barbados inflation rate projected at 1.8 per cent.
The UWI said fees are paid in the local currency of the site of registration or in US dollars and as such the base currency for the calculation of fees for regional programmes is demonstrated in US$. It said the exchange rates to be used for the 2014/2015 academic year will be confirmed at a later date.
The UWI Council is the supreme governing body of the regional institution
