It looks like the cost of a Dalhousie University degree is about to become even more expensive.

For the fourth year in a row, Dalhousie is preparing to raise tuition by the maximum amount allowed by the province.

The largest university in the Maritimes is proposing a three per cent hike in tuition next fall to generate an extra $3.6 million. The move affects many of the 19,000 enrolled at the school.

Some of the increase will go to maintaining buildings and to the departments that bring in the most students.

Students now pay $7,800 a year for an undergraduate arts degree, so the potential hike is a worry for second-year theatre arts student Nathan Simmons.

"I'm already having a hard time paying off my tuition, as it is. I have to still pay off … $1,500. If they raise [tuition], it's going to be even harder for me to pay it off," he said.

According to Statistics Canada, the cost of an undergraduate degree in Nova Scotia is already eight per cent higher than the national average.

Specialized programs such as law and medicine will see higher increases.

No one from Dalhousie's administration was available Friday to tell CBC News why it's proposing to raise tuition by three per cent in the fall.

The budget document says that's based on a projected one per cent increase from the provincial government. The actual operating grant won't be known until the provincial budget is introduced next month.

Other Nova Scotia universities are also considering similar hikes to cover rising costs.

Whether the university actually needs more money from its students is a big question that the Dalhousie Student Union wants the university to answer.

"Is this a common practice that we will automatically put tuition up three per cent and then we project low enrolment and then enrolment turns out to be better and then we use that money to cover our deficit?" asked DSU president Ramz Aziz.

"That's not good business practice."

That situation has happened at Dalhousie twice before. The student union will push the university to reject the tuition hike which works out to be closer to five per cent for international students who come to the province to study.