University of Windsor increasing international student tuition to offset Ontario's domestic decrease

International students at the University of Windsor will see a tuition fee increase to offset a provincially-mandated 10 per cent decrease for their domestic counterparts.

The board of governors voted in favour of the motion Tuesday, which will see tuition rise by five per cent for most international students in the next school year. There's no increase for the applied computing program, but a nine per cent tuition spike for overseas students in engineering.

"I think among international students there's a consistent messaging that the university doesn't care about them," said University of Windsor Students' Alliance president Jeremiah Bowers.

"We need to be holding ourselves accountable in the sense that if we're increasing international student tuition, we need to know what additional supports are being provided," he said.

This is one of three ways the school is trying to find $10 million it will be losing from the 10 per cent tuition cut for domestic students, put in place by the Ford government. The University of Windsor calls this the biggest revenue shortfall in its history.

In addition to the "strategic tuition fee increases," the school is also trying to increase enrolment in first-year undergraduate students and international masters students as well as internal "belt tightening", including a 1.5 per cent cut to the president and vice president budgets.

"You have a limited repertoire of strategies to deal with those foreseen and unforeseen costs," said interim president Douglas Kneale.