Courses, Money & Enrolment

UBC’s policy on financial support

UBC is strongly committed to ensuring accessibility for domestic students.

Policy LR10 was created to ensure that UBC is financially accessible to all domestic students and that domestic students are not prevented from starting or continuing their studies for financial reasons.

Guiding principles

UBC created its policy on financial support, called Policy LR10, to ensure that UBC’s financial assistance programs and services meet the goal of making the University financially accessible to domestic students. Policy LR10 has three guiding principles:

Funding the students who need it most

Many students would like to be considered for some kind of financial support. It’s up to UBC to figure out who needs support and how much each student needs to receive, and then to place the priority on funding students who need it most. Policy LR10 helps us make those decisions.

Have all students contribute

For many years, UBC students have strongly endorsed two practices: designating an amount of every student’s tuition to fund financial support for all (called the tuition pool) and sharing that financial support across programs in a way that ensures that funds are spent where they will do the most good.

Ensure financial support is sustainable

UBC has significant funds available for student support, but they are not endless and they must be spent responsibly. Programs with higher fees have limits on the amount of support their students can draw from the central tuition pool; this ensures that students in all programs can access funding fairly.

In addition to the tuition pool, financial support is available from private donations. Faculties fundraise to increase the amount of support available specifically to their students.

For Policy LR10 to work, both UBC and its students have important roles to play.

The University must be responsive and responsible

UBC’s role is to:

  • Provide financial support according to Policy LR10’s guiding principles.
  • Offer students clear information about the available funding
  • Deliver support in a timely fashion so students can meet their costs
  • Advocate on our students’ behalf to ensure that government financial support programs meet the needs of students
  • Regularly report our activities to ensure that we are fulfilling our role

Students must be proactive

Policy LR10 is not a blanket guarantee of funding. As a student, you need to have a clear understanding of your responsibilities and take the steps necessary to access all available resources. This includes:

  • Talking with your family about support
  • Applying for government student loans
  • Demonstrating financial need
  • Meeting deadlines for funding programs
  • Ensuring you are taking the minimum number of courses required for support
  • Maintaining a good credit history

How much support do you need?

UBC needs a fair way to decide how much financial support to give to each student. This is done by calculating a standard number that we call your “assessed financial need”. Our calculation considers your educational costs and some standard allowances for living expenses. Your personal resources (including scholarships) are also factored in, as are your family’s resources, if you are considered a “dependent”.

The University’s method of calculating financial need is similar to the method used for BC student loan applications.

What is available for your program?

Once we have completed our calculations to determine your financial need, we look at the types of financial support you can access. Types of support include:

  • Repayable funding, such as government student loans and commercial loans or lines of credit from private financial institutions
  • Non-repayable funding, such as bursaries
  • Wage subsidy programs, such as Work Study

The types of support you can access will depend on your course of study.

Flexibility in the policy

We recognize that not every student’s financial situation fits within our set of rules. That’s why Policy LR10 allows for exceptions in cases where:

  • There are financial emergencies, or
  • Where the standard assessment method does not realistically reflect a student’s situation.

Bring exceptional cases to the attention of Student Records & Financial Services so they can be addressed promptly.

Courses, Money & Enrolment