NEWS
4 Obiter Dicta
What is my $23,599 paying for?
A breakdown of what tuition pays for at Osgoode
henry limheng › contributor
Osgoode Tuition* Over the Years
JD
st u den ts at Osgoode Hall have
the dubious distinction of paying the
second highest law school tuition in
Canada: $23,599. But ever wonder
what your tuition is actually paying for, and what
causes Osgoode tuition to be so high? The pOZcast (the
student-run podcast) has been conducting an analysis trying to determine the breakdown of how tuition
dollars are being allocated. But providing a breakdown of tuition is easier said than done. This article
is an attempt to look into Osgoode’s books and answer
the question: what is my $23,599 paying for?
Tuition at Canadian Law Schools from
Lowest to Highest
l aw school
tuition per year*
McGill
$2,273 ($6,641)†
Moncton
$5,604
Victoria
$9,029
Manitoba
$9,311
New Brunswick
$9,837
Alberta
$10,221
UBC
$11,448
Saskatchewan
$12,015
Calgary
$12,315
Dalhousie
$12,497 ($13,519)†
Lakehead
$15,594
Windsor
$16,049
Ottawa
$16,061
Queen’s
$16,931
Thompson Rivers
$17,828
Western
$18,421
Osgoode (York)
$22,672
Toronto
$30,230
* Not including ancillary fees.
† Out-of-province tuition rate.
Data courtesy of Maclean’s Magazine.
Tuition in the Big Picture
Osgoode does not actually get to spend the entire
$23,599 you pay for tuition; holdback from York
University, mandatory set-asides, and ancillary fees
take a certain amount away from Osgoode’s general
spending coffers. It is also worth saying upfront that
Osgoode is not a for-profit business: Dean Sossin does
not get to take home more money because of a budget
surplus. Generally speaking, any surplus funds are
invested back into the institution. That said, this has
* Graph depicts 1l tuition minus ancillary fees from 1998-99 to 2014-15.
Data courtesy of Osgoode Student Services
not stopped tuition from increasing at a surprising
rate. Tuition has increased almost 500% since the
year 2000, when tuition was $4,649.
Osgoode students collectively paid roughly $21.1
million of JD tuition and fees in 2014/15. But finding where that money goes was not a simple task; a
particular hurdle was that Osgoo