A report issued last week by the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation has provoked harsh words from some student leaders. The Price of Knowledge: Access and Student Finance in Canada isn’t exactly a page-turner—the report is mostly demographic tables and statistical charts—but despite its dull appearance, the reaction has been fierce.

“This is charged data, politically,” said SAC External Commissioner Alexandra Artful-Dodger. “The report claims that tuition raises have not affected accessibility, even by low-income students—that seems politically motivated.”

That was just one of the report’s conclusions; it also indicated that certain groups were being shut out of post-secondary institutions, such as First Nations students, francophones, and the disabled. The report pegs tuition hikes at 76 per cent over the past decade, average student debt at $21,200, and government assistance to students at $4.3 billion. But the most controversial statement in The Price of Knowledge was that “there is no readily observable relationship between tuition and overall participation rates.”

Sean Junor, one of the authors of the report, says there’s no political agenda behind The Price of Knowledge: “We don’t have a stake in how people use the report,” he said. “We hope it will be used by all groups, student or otherwise.”

Artful-Dodger wasn’t buying it, however: “I think universities will use this report to justify tuition hikes over the next few years,” she said. “I don’t like that a foundation set up to assist students is justifying raising prices for them.”

Sheldon Levy, U of T’s vice-president of government and institutional relations, doesn’t think that’s an issue, however: “That decision is out of our hands,” he said. “Tuition fee increases are mandated at 2 per cent [per year].” (2 per cent is the maximum annual tuition increase allowed by the Ontario government.)

Reaction from outside the U of T was strong as well. The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) criticized the report’s figures, saying they were out of date. “It’s old data,” said Erin Stevenson, CASA’s Communications Coordinator. “Statistics can be interpreted in so many different ways.”

Junor, however, says the report is as accurate as it can be. “I can only respond by saying that it’s the best data available….We’d love to be right up to the minute, but data [for the past four years] simply doesn’t exist.”

Claudia Hepburn, a researcher for the conservative Fraser Institute, said all the talk about the money is missing the point. “It matters more to people what something costs than what they’re getting out of it,” she said. The report “shows that education is valuable, something which people are willing to make sacrifices for. You’re only going to encourage excellence if people have the power to choose institutions—competition is what will make schools better.”

Denise Doherty-Delorme, a policy analyst for the left-wing Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, disagreed. She disliked the report’s finding that government assistance is increasingly going to individuals rather than institutions. “Canadians spend $3 billion on tuition every year,” she said. “Government spends about the same. If government wiped out these boutique-style assistance programs, they could wipe out tuition fees. It’s a very unfortunate trend: many of these programs that support individuals go to people who already have the means to pay for university.”

The Price of Knowledge is still being digested by many decision-makers (according to one source, the report was a surprise to many universities), so its impact has yet to be determined. “It’s not too different from what other reports have found,” said Levy. “The influence of the report is minimal.”

But Artful-Dodger and other student leaders were already contemplating their response to the report. The issue was scheduled to be discussed at a meeting of the SAC External Affairs Commission on Monday, and both CASA and the Canadian Federation of Students are said to be preparing their own reports in response.

More information about The Price of Knowledge can be found at www.millenniumscholarships.ca/factbook.