A study into the effects of higher tuition on U of T’s law school is creating controversy—even before the study gets underway.
Amy Porteous, a third year law student, said the Study of Accessibility and Career Choice in the Faculty of Law is “designed to justify tuition increases rather than to sort of out the issue of whether they are a good idea or not.”
But yesterday, U of T’s Committee on Academic Policy and Programs voted to endorse the study, which is being undertaken by the Provost, Shirley Neuman.
The Governing Council (GC) requested the study last May. Neuman leads the study, which is meant to examine the effects of tuition increases in the law school. Last year, U of T approved a plan to increase tuition by $2,000 a year for a five-year period, resulting in fees of $22,000 per year.
The presentation to the committee on academic policy and programs came after a poisonous consultation between Neuman and law students last week. Several representatives of the law students attended yesterday’s meeting and spoke to committee members, expressing their concerns about the study.
Aaron Delaney, the external chair for the student caucus of the faculty council, lambasted the provost’s office for excluding the law school community from meaningfully contributing to the study process. “As the study is proposed right now, we risk becoming objects of the study, rather than active participants,” he said.
The provost claimed the lack of involvement of the law school was related to GC’s request that the study be conducted at arm’s length from the faculty of law. There was concern that the politicization of the issue of tuition hikes could cause information coming out of the faculty to be biased. She added that she had been asked to verify all data supplied by the law school—a request she said was “inappropriate.” This was not “an expression of disrespect for the law school,” she said, but a concern with accuracy.
Because of the arm’s-length approach, the study was to rely on the Law Society of Upper Canada for much of its data. Members of the committee pointed out the career development office of the faculty has relevant data. Neuman agreed that if the committee favoured using this data in addition to the Upper Canada data, she would be glad to include it.
When Porteous addressed the committee, she expressed concern about the Upper Canada data, which only tracks alumni practising in Ontario. “A large proportion of U of T students leave the province or go on to high paying jobs on Wall Street or in Boston,” said Porteous. These career choices—possibly influenced by debt load—will not be taken into account.
Porteous also questioned the study’s assessment of “public interest law,” one of the measures of whether students are being forced into high paying jobs to pay off loans. The study defines those who are practising in public interest law as those who spend more than 20 per cent of their time in areas such as environmental law, labour relations, aboriginal work, etc. Porteous said, “A lot of lawyers can spend their entire careers in environment or labour law and not do a single thing for the public interest.”
Delaney criticized the manner in which the study addresses accessibility. One of the areas being inspected by the study is the impact of increased tuition on students who are visible minorities. Delaney wondered whether it was appropriate to focus on a decline when current levels of accessibility were questionable.
“The whole thrust of our debate during the five-year plan last year was that perhaps we are not at an accessible level right now,” commented Delaney.
Law student and GC member Josh Paterson said he was “curious as to how we can draw any real conclusions” from the study. Paterson felt that since only one year of data was available since tuition increases first hit students (in 1999), the full impact of the hikes will not be shown.
The provost plans to continue the study until 2012, measuring the ongoing impact of tuition increases. Paterson worried that if results from each year are used as a basis for ongoing tuition increases, the cumulative impact will be discovered “too late to save a lost generation of lawyers.”
The endorsement of the methodology by the Committee on Academic Policy and Programs means that study will go forth. Many law students still feel the study will be carried out without considering their concerns. After the meeting, Delaney said, “As a student, it’s pretty clear that we’re being disempowered in this process.”
Photograph by Simon Turnbull
