Edgewood College/UpGrad DBA; potentially $11,250

[bjcheung77]

Thanks a lot, @bjcheung77, for the detailed information. I’m based in London, Southwestern Ontario.
When applying through upGrad, they require a letter of intent and a master’s degree - though I believe relevant experience might be accepted as a substitute. It would be ideal if I could use $20K from my RRSP for this purpose, and based on my age, I qualify for the Canada Lifelong Learning Plan.

Great stuff, there are requirements, shouldn't be too hard to qualify, as long as you're able to take some RRSP, you'll still be in the tax bracket and won't be taxed as much. I would take some time to apply, get everything organized, research/review requirements, and verify conditions and terms of the plan/tax implications. There are savings to be made with these options.

Oh, there are actually quite a few Canadians in my cohort. We started in 2024 and submitted a request for the TL11A form. Here’s the response we received:

“Please note that Edgewood College reports tuition amounts based on the end date of each course, rather than the date of payment. As none of your enrolled courses concluded within the 2024 calendar year, there is no tuition to be reported for 2024. Therefore, a TL11A form for the 2024 tax year cannot be issued at this time. Any courses that end in 2025, including those that may have started in 2024, will be included in the tuition total for the 2025 tax year and will be reflected accordingly in the TL11A certificate issued for 2025.”

The main concern we're noticing is that Edgewood likely received only a portion of what we paid, with Upgrad retaining the rest. I’m not sure how much that might be, but the TL11A probably only reflects what Edgewood actually received.

Another major issue we're currently facing in my cohort is the matter of specializations. I was referred to this program by a friend, and my main interest is Healthcare Management. But now, it no longer exists, and we’re all being told we have to go with the Leadership specialization, without any choice, not even the other options like Marketing, Finance.

What happened to the specializations? It seems they're forcing people into one specialization as the others are not taking enough students... I wonder what's happening at Upgrad. It seems they're going through some growing pains, just like any other educational provider or learning system, they're having issues expanding properly.