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 The new school year is underway and Canadian university students are again dealing with tuition hikes that go well beyond a typical increase in the cost of living. Statistics Canada on Friday said the average annual tuition fee for undergraduate students is $5,366 for 2011-12, up 4.3 per cent from last year. That follows a four per cent rise in tuition in the 2010-11 school year. The federal agency pointed out the annual rate of inflation was running at 2.7 per cent in July. Newfoundland and Labrador, where tuition rates have been frozen since 2003-04, was the only province where tuition didn't increase this year, Statistics Canada said. burberry outlet In other provinces, the hikes ranged from 5.1 per cent in Ontario to 1.4 per cent in Manitoba. "We're in a situation where students are actually on the verge of bankruptcy before even getting their first job interview," said Roxanne Dubois, chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students. Previous data from Statistics Canada shows that average undergraduate tuition was $3,447 in 2000-01 and $1,464 in 1990-91. While that seems to indicate costs have risen more than 50 per cent in the last decade and almost quadrupled in the last 20 years, an official with Statistics Canada said the figures are not directly comparable because of things such as changing methodologies in calculation and shifting composition rates across different faculties, for which tuition rates vary widely. Dubois called on the federal government and provincial governments to put more money toward post-secondary education to directly reduce or freeze tuition costs. Asked why Canadian taxpayers should collectively foot more of the tuition bill for students, Dubois said: "Just like health care, education is a service in this country, which means you have a chance to benefit from it when you're going through the system. "Eventually, with getting the training that you require, you'll be able to enter the job market, get a job and re-contribute to the system through your progressive tax system, which would ensure you pay a portion of what you make (back to the education system)." Glen Jones, a professor of education policy at the University of Toronto, said there's no direct link between overall accessibility to higher education and tuition, given that participation rates in Canada have continued to rise in recent years. Rather than focusing on tuition rates, Jones said governments should simply make sure those with more modest financial means get the help they need to attend school. "Whatever the tuition fee level is, it shouldn't get in the way of students deciding to go," Jones said. "I think few people would argue that a student from a multimillion-dollar family shouldn't pay a reasonable amount of money for the cost of their education." Jones added that tuition rates in Canada remain lower than in much of the United States and in the United Kingdom. Not only did Ontario see the biggest year-to-year rise in tuition fees, it also had the most expensive overall cost at $6,640 for undergraduates. Perhaps not surprisingly, post-secondary tuition has emerged as an issue in the current election campaign in Ontario. Premier Dalton McGuinty has promised to slash tuition costs by 30 per cent for students with family incomes of less than $160,000 a year, while NDP leader Andrea Horwath has said she would freeze tuition rates for four years. New Brunswick had the second highest undergraduate tuition costs at $5,858, up 3.6 per cent after having its rates frozen for the previous three years. Quebec is the cheapest province to attend university as an undergraduate this year with average tuition of $2,519, even after a 4.5 per cent rise from last year. By faculty, the highest average undergraduate tuition cost is for dentistry at $16,024, up 6.4 per cent from last year. That's followed by medicine at $11,345, up 4.4 per cent from a year before, and pharmacy at $9,806, up 8.8 per cent. Pharmacy studies saw the highest annual tuition hikes among all undergraduate programs in Canada. The average tuition for graduate programs this year is $5,599, up 3.7 per cent from a year earlier. Besides frozen rates in Newfoundland, the gains ranged from 5.5 per cent in Ontario to 0.1 per cent in Alberta. Ontario has the most expensive graduate programs with an average tuition of $7,578 while Newfoundland has the lowest at $2,456. The most expensive graduate program is for an executive master of business administration, where the average tuition is $37,501, up 1.3 per cent from last year. Law programs saw the biggest increase from last year among graduate studies, up 20.7 per cent to an average of $5,414 a year.