Linear Inflation adjustment rates and a horrific expansion plan in the early 2000s
I'm only going to provide 2 reasons for high tuition costs, that if we address, would half tuition.
Error margins in Inflation adjustment and the 2000 - 2005 spike in tuition costs. Every year the university increases tuition by 2% to adjust for inflation ever since 2005. However, inflation doesn't occur linearly. Sometimes it's over 2% and under 2%, most of the time under. From the course of 2005 → 2020, tuition has increased by about 35% whereas inflation only 28%. In perspective, if you took 2005 fees which were $4239 for a full time student and multiplied it by those inflation values there is about a $300 difference. But the real deafening increases in tuition happened between 2000 - 2005, tuition was literally doubled. Why → administration wanted to expand various fields and let students take the fall for the revenue they couldn't make up as a part of their "a vision for the future" strategic framework. From this point on I'm only discussing the general operating fund to which tuition is a source of money, and where tuition money is spent from 2000 - 2005 (I'm only talking about credit tuition). Administration increased expenses from 161 million to 221 million, these expense increases were widely distributed. The government was only willing to give the university 25 million in response to this rapid agenda. You should note here that in 2000, government funded UVic with 105 million dollars, 65% of the fund, while students were only providing 36 million, a fifth. When the government didn't pony up the cash UVic sourced it from it's students, letting them take the fall. The only revenue field that saw an significant increase between 2000 - 2005 besides the 25 million from government was tuition. UVic's student revenue climbed to 76 million dollars. That's more than double the revenue they were getting from students in 2000. If you add both of these factors up, meaning you undid the changes made in the "vision for the future" framework (and some other adjustments) and accounted for the real amount of inflation, tuition today for the full time student would only cost $2900. Speaking personally, I don't care how beneficial those increases in spending were, UVic exasperated a growing student debt crisis by doubling tuition. I'd rather pay half the tuition then have another facility or department or the several other things they did with extra 54 million dollars they got from students (inflation adjusted).
Give the UVSS real power
First things first, stop adjusting tuition for inflation with a linear inflation model. Change it to the actual amount of inflation. Secondly, there needs to be a broad deduction in expenses across the university to undo what was done in the early 2000s. This means shaking and partially destroying the status quo. Moreover, UVSS needs actual power to leverage the highest levels of governance in UVic. UVSS advocates, controls the elections, lobbies, but at the end of the day, the entire organization is more or less words without action save for the occasional victory. Which actually explains why students more or less don't care about voting in their elections. If you want people to vote, give them something real to vote for, not just empty promises without means. If UVSS in the early 2000s had the ability to sway the internal governance of UVic, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that UVic could've doubled tuition in the span of a few years. The people affected most and in the greatest quantity by UVic's governance have an almost insignificant say in how UVic is governed. That means student interests, like tuition costs, are not represented nor fought for at the highest levels of UVic Governance. UVSS needs to be given real power to make change on campus.
University is dying
The benefits of going to University are decreasing, while the costs are rising. There is a real prospect that university will transition from being a "necessity" for the job market to purely leisure education. Not only is most information available online for free, half the things university teaches you are completely irrelevant to whatever job you are pursuing. Half the degrees offered in University have a very limited or practically non-existent job market. Now I say this understanding there are certain exceptions like engineering and medical, but more or less this holds true. The invisible hand of the market is moving away from University and the only way that Universities are going to survive the next few generations is if they lower the buy in costs. It's needed to compete with literally free education and a rapidly diversifying job market. If universities don't step up to the challenge, getting a degree will soon only be useful for three things: Proof you can do your chores, fun with peers, and a sign of general knowledge. UVic has a choice, to continue to cripple their students until they decide they aren't worth it, or to make education affordable and time efficient.