Hundreds of students turned out yesterday for a rally at Queen's Park (Ontario Parliament Buildings). Many of the students marched from the University of Toronto campus and they waited in the freezing cold for more than an hour before the contingent from Ryerson marched along College St. and up University Ave. to join them. Like most Professors, I want tuition to be as low as possible because education is a right. The government of Ontario should at the very least hold the current tuition at its present level for the foreseeable future. It should increase direct funding to the universities to maintain quality and allow for expansion.
The long-term goal should be to provide free education to all qualified students.
It keeps surprising me how shockingly high tuition is in most other countries. I live in Belgium, and average tuition here is 500 € per year, and significantly less for low-income households.
ReplyDeleteAs a student at UofT, I find your support of that rally to be disconcerting. I will admit to be casually sympathetic to lower tuition, increased government funding, and improved access to post-secondary education; I doubt anyone else would feel different. However, that rally was blind, reflexive and irresponsible reaction from the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) and SAC (UofT Student Administrative Council, supposedly representing all students). A good obvious point to start off would be the fact that tuition makes up a significant portion of any university's budget; I believe it makes up about half of UofT's operating budget. Obviously, a reduction in the budget would result in a decrease in quality of education, but I will focus on something else: tuition freezing. During Ontario's last tuition freeze, the tuition fees went down for some but not all students-- the fees for international students went up. Seeing as how international students make up about a tenth of the demographic at UofT, the self-congratulatory nature of SAC's rhetoric (when they do point out our last tuition freeze) is disgusting and hypocritical. The adage goes that money doesn't grow on trees, a wisdom that some students choose to ignore. The fact of the matter is that tuition fees are relatively reasonable, even if students go into debt; there is a tremendous amount of support in terms of OSAP (Ontario Student Assistance Program), scholarships and negotiable loans. Student debt is not insuperable, and repaying debt is a fact of life for many people, not just students. In Quebec, the province with the lowest tuition fees, university attendance is on par with that of the rest of Canada, thus the argument that 'high' tuition fees impede accessibility is wrong. Most people who want higher education can get as much.
ReplyDeleteWhat is horribly wrong is SAC, spending half a million dollars in mandatory student levies for inclusion in CFS, an ineffectual organisation that has done little to represent student concerns. What is wrong is that many students in special programs and professional faculties are not represented by such protests from ignorance. There are innumerable things wrong I could discuss about SAC and their agenda, but the wrongness isn't solely with universities; the Ontario high school dropout rate is 30%. High school calculus, in an effort to lower the dropout rate, no longer teaches integration, and the most difficult thing they cover is differentiation of trigonometric functions, a horrible prep for university. There is so many problems with education in Ontario, that it saddens me to find out that you support a hollow and puerile protest by some of the most hypocritical and ignorant minority. I find it disappointing that you, while championing skepticism and evidence on many issues, would advocate free education for qualified students (a nebulous term) with no plan as to how to do so, and without sufficient understanding of context.
Dunbar,
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to hear that you're "disconcerted" over my support for cheap university education. Let me state my position clearly. I favor free university education in state-supported universities. I will support anyone who advocates that, or even a freezing of tuition.
I don't belong to SAC or CFS but that doesn't mean I can't support them in this cause. If you have issues with CFS and SAC then you should take steps to change the leadership.
I would prefer to live in a society where students did not have to start off life in debt - although I appreciate that eliminating tuition won't necessarily solve that problem. (Tuition is only one third of the total cost of going to university.) The majority of students don't go into debt because the cost of university is borne by parents and other relatives. In my case, for example, I "donated" about $40,000 to Canadian universities to get degrees for my two children.
I have never said that the cost of university is preventing qualified students from going to university. The facts don't support such an argument and I wish people would stop using false arguments to advance a good cause.
You close by saying,
There is so many problems with education in Ontario, that it saddens me to find out that you support a hollow and puerile protest by some of the most hypocritical and ignorant minority. I find it disappointing that you, while championing skepticism and evidence on many issues, would advocate free education for qualified students (a nebulous term) with no plan as to how to do so, and without sufficient understanding of context.
First, from my perspective most demonstrations by groups of students are puerile—that's the nature of the beast. My support of lower tuition is not related to my perception of SAC of CFS and you are quite wrong to interpret it that way.
Second, "qualified student" is not a nebulous term. I'm obviously referring to the fact that students have to meet certain minimal qualifications in order to be admitted into university. I need to add the adjective (qualified) in order to make it clear that I don't support free university education for every single high school graduate. I'm sorry if this confuses you.
Third, why in the world would you make the ridiculous claim that I have "no plan as to how to do so, and without sufficient understanding of context." I've been fighting for this cause on and off since 1966. Do you really think I have no idea where the money should come from or what the context is? With all due respect, that's a very "puerile" assumption, don't you think?