Your co-op fee

Your student-paid co-op fee funds the delivery of the co-op program at Waterloo. Like tuition, this fee is required if you are enrolled in a co-op program. You’ll pay the fee in installments throughout your time at Waterloo. All undergraduate co-op students pay the co-op fee — as do some graduate students whose co-op programs are supported by the Co-operative Education department. Learn more about our graduate co-op programs.

Your co-op fee represents the cost of running the co-op program (including WE Accelerate) at Waterloo. We review the co-op fee amount each year to align with projected costs and determine whether an increase is needed. Factors such as service improvements, inflation and salary increases influence the co-op fee. The review process includes consultation with students and input on the services that the co-op fee funds. In recent years, the co-op fee has increased very modestly (from FY2020 to FY2024, the average annual increase was 0.7%). These factors contributed to our ability to keep these increases small:

• The Ontario Government’s Bill 124 limited salary increases to 1% annually from 2020 to 2023. The bill has since been repealed and staff salaries have now increased significantly. Salary costs, including benefits, comprise approximately 80% of the total annual cost of running the co-op program and have a material impact on co-op fee increases.
• For two years, during the pandemic, CEE and the University received temporary federal government funding through the Student Work Placement Program to fund co-op roles.
• The switch to a virtual work environment during the pandemic resulted in significant cost savings including a reduction in travel costs (staff travel to visit employers and students as well as for business development and professional development purposes).

The Co-operative Education department directly incurs most of the costs of running the co-op program. These costs include salaries, technology, communication and marketing, supplies, promotion and advertising, business development, travel and other similar costs.

At the University level, additional costs are incurred centrally. The central costs include benefits (e.g., health and dental insurance), space occupancy expenses (e.g. water, heat, electricity) and the Co-operative Education department’s use of other University services such as Human Resources, Finance, etc.

Your co-op fee is intended to recover both the direct and centrally incurred expenses of running the co-op program at the University.

Throughout the Co-operative Education department, we continuously work to reduce our costs. However, like most things in our current economy, the cost of securing co-op jobs and running the Co-operative Education program has increased significantly.

Cost-saving measures

The following list outlines some of the cost-saving measures the Co-operative Education department is taking to minimize the co-op fee:

• Stopping incremental hires and examining hiring needs to minimize costs while maintaining service levels
• Workforce planning with a goal of fiscal restraint
• Analyzing our business development expenses to ensure the greatest return possible
• Reducing expenses (including promotional materials and printing costs)
• Reducing reimbursable expenses for staff
• Reducing the office space we use on campus to lower occupancy costs
• Reducing travel costs (including limiting in-person employer and student visits, focusing on virtual connections and decreasing the number of in-person meetings)

The co-op fee is the primary source of funding for Co-operative Education. Other funding sources outside of the fee are used for specific projects (e.g., Co-op for Community funds student salaries to work at non-profit organizations).

We understand that students also feel the strain of the current economic situation. Our priority is to keep the co-op fee as low as possible while still offering you valuable service and responsibly managing our costs.

We are committed to transparency, fiscal responsibility and providing accurate and up-to-date information about your co-op fee on this page. If you have questions about your co-op fee, please use this form.

Your 2024/2025 co-op fee amount and breakdown

The co-op fee amount for 2024/2025 is $786. This amount represents a $30, or four per cent (4%), increase from 2023/2024. Co-operative Education determined this amount using our annual financial analysis and fee-setting process, which includes student consultations. The Board of Governors has approved this fee amount.

You’ll pay the co-op fee multiple times throughout your degree. To be clear, the co-op fee is not a "job-finding fee" per work term. It is a pro-rated fee that, over the course of a student's degree, recovers the full costs associated with running the co-op program.

In 2023/2024, the co-op fee funded a variety of initiatives including:

• new student-support model to align with faculties and improve student services and continuity of care
• specific industry engagement to secure relevant jobs and address the challenges of the current labour market
• improvements to WaterlooWorks UI/UX
• new initiatives and improvements to support student accessibility, EDI-R, and IR (including dedicated roles)
• pilot of new Faculty of Health recruiting term model
• WE Accelerate programming for first-work-term students
• increase “Not Interested” rankings to five each term
• update job postings to include compensation information and employment arrangement (in-person, remote or hybrid)

Your academic program determines when the co-op fee appears as a charge on your account in Quest. The cost of participating in co-op is spread throughout your degree to minimize the fees you’ll need to pay in any given term.

 Co-op fee allocation

Here is a breakdown of the $786 co-op fee amount. We’ve sorted every role and expense funded by your co-op fee into seven distinct categories of work/costs.