Student groups and education advocates say eliminating the tuition tax credit makes the province's post-secondary schools less attractive to students, who are already leaving Alberta in droves. 

In 2019 the government released its budget documents. As part of that package, the tuition tax credit was eliminated, but the change came into effect in 2020.

It was one of several cuts to advanced education as part of an overarching goal to decrease the amount of public funding to post-secondary institutions by 20 per cent over four years. 

But then, the pandemic hit. Recognizing students and institutions would struggle, the government paused its plans to introduce performance-based funding for schools and temporarily froze interest fees for student loans.

Now, as the pandemic soldiers on, students and families are seeing the effects of the tuition tax credit cut in their 2020 tax returns. 

Rowan Ley, chair of the Council of Alberta University Students (CAUS), says eliminating that tax credit effectively represents a $200 million cut to student aid.

Frank Finley, the University of Calgary Students' Union President, said on top of tuition increases, students are facing more debt than ever before for an education.

"All this while students struggle to find employment due to the pandemic," Finley said. "Another incompetent move from this government that will only cause a brain drain from Alberta as students seek better prospects elsewhere."

Provincial student aid systems

According to a statement from the Ministry of Advanced Education, the tax credit was eliminated to put the province in line with other jurisdictions like Ontario and Saskatchewan, where a similar tax credit doesn't exist.

But Ley said that isn't a fair comparison.

"It's very misleading to say that this puts us in a similar situation as [other provinces], because those provinces have a very different student aid system," Ley said.

"Those tax credits filled a role in Alberta that is filled by needs-based grants in other parts of Canada and losing those means that we are now even further behind the pack in terms of affordability."

He added that CAUS has long advocated that money cut should be reinvested in needs-based grants.

While they would come at a similar cost, they are more focused on the students and families who need the most support.

"It falls the heaviest on single parents and on mature learners who are coming back to school," Ley said. "That obviously is a pretty significant injustice, that people who face some of the biggest barriers to getting an education have now had that barrier raised again."