computer science,  fees

fees creepin’ up on us from behind

Hello again,
I was just wondering if I could get your input on this. I am 4th year student at UTSC majoring in Mathematics, minoring in Computer Science and Statistics. I am pretty late but I was thinking about changing my minors to a Computer Science major.
How much do you think it will cost in retroactive fees if I were to switch? And how much do you think OSAP would cover? I talked to several of my peers and they told me this enormous amount that they had to pay (when they switched into the program earlier). I really would like to switch, but I am scared it might be way too costly.

Thank you!

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hey there,

if you’re going into fourth year, you’ll be charged the deregulated computer science fee for your fourth year. you will also be charged retroactively for your second and third year, but it’s not as bad as you think:

you will only be charged the difference between what you paid in your second and third years and the computer science fee (for each year). for simplicity’s sake, let’s say you paid $7000 in first year, and the computer science fee was $10 000. that means you would retroactively be charged $3000 for second and third year.

you can take a look at the exact amount it will cost by checking the fee schedule for computer science and then subtracting your previous years’ fees from that amount, two times.

so, it’s not as bad as it could be, but it’s still a lot of money.

as for how much OSAP would cover: that all depends, and the answer is a bit complicated, so buckle in.

OSAP will consider your higher fees when deciding how much funding to give you. however, the amount they give you may not be enough to cover what you need.

also, OSAP does have a maximum amount that they give, meaning that it’s possible for you to max out. if your need exceeds that maximum amount, then you’ll have to turn to other ways to scrape the bucks together – typically, that’s UTAPS.

you can use UTAPS’ funding estimator to figure how much you’re likely to get from them. if OSAP and UTAPS together still aren’t enough, you can appeal to OSAP.

all that being said, we are coming up quite close to the deadline to register (August 17th for UTSC students), so i’d highly recommend you hightail it to your registrar’s office and talk about this with them right away. it’s also probably a good idea to talk with a financial aid advisor, to go over some of the finer points relating to OSAP, UTAPS and OSAP appeals.

regardless of how much money you get from OSAP/UTAPS, you’re not going to get it right away. that’s a problem because your back balance needs to be paid off before you can defer using OSAP, so you’ll likely need to negotiate some kind of arrangement with your registrar’s office where they waive that requirement and manually register you, if possible.

good luck with it.

xoxo,

aska

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