During the No Logo Team’s election campaign we made a commitment to fight for lower tuition. Though many people reminded us that SAC has no role in setting tuition we were quick to state that that was the wrong attitude to approach the issue with. Tuition can be frozen and/or lowered (as it has been in five provinces), but in order to do so U of T students would need to work collectively with students around the province and country.
On February 6th, students will have that opportunity to do just that as they participate in the National Student Day of Action.
Year after year students face the anxiety of mounting bills. Living in Toronto is expensive enough. The annual increases in tuition and ancillary fees have made the task of paying our bills and surviving more arduous and for some unbearable. First, let’s get to the hard numbers—the reality of tuition. U of T collects $18.5 million more from students’ tuition this year than last, with only $6 million going back into student funding. Medicine and dentistry tuition is now $14 000, law is $10 000, Ph.D. students have seen their tuition rise by 472 per cent and undergraduates by 125 per cent in the past ten years. The average national student debt after four years of undergraduate studies is $25,000.
Besides the raw numbers and financial loss students have faced, other more long-term and concerning issues are arising. There has been a demographic shift in who even applies to universities. People from low socio-economic backgrounds are less likely to choose post-secondary education, as their rate of participation has declined in recent years. Despite all the statistics, U of T’s president, Dr. Birgeneau, continues to argue that the problem facing students is not tuition. Though he is pushing for need-based instead of merit-based scholarships, very little new money is going into these financial aid packages and they do little for people who would rather not go to university at all than go into crippling debt. The sheer size of tuition needs to be taken up, and the administration at this university needs to realize this instead of pretending the problem does not exist. Issues of accessibility and debt are best addressed not by fancy packages and or tax deductibles, but through lowering the cost of attending post-secondary institutions and increasing the funds coming from the provincial and federal governments into post-secondary education. As well, problems in current financial assistance programs need to be challenged. OSAP is not available to part-time students, often the most in need.
Application fees and service charges associated with student loan programs, as well as archaic and overly-complex repayment schemes make the borrowing process an added burden on students. Because of these many concerns SAC, APUS and the GSU have decided to participate in the national student day of action, with the goal of mobilizing as many U of T students as possible so that, along with students at campuses across the country, we can express a collective voice about the deterioration of our public post-secondary education system.
