The societal costs of increasing tuition for law and medical students at U of T was a dominant theme at a protest held yesterday on the steps of the Faculty of Law’s Flavelle Hall. The rally, which started at noon, drew approximately 200 supporters.
According to protest organizer Ben Arkin, a second-year law student, the goal of the gathering was to let the administration know that the proposed increases in tuition for law students are “not a done deal.” Arkin says the administration’s assertion that the increases are necessary in order to attract top students and tenured faculty is incorrect.
Since 1997, the year the provincial government effectively deregulated tuition for professional programs in Ontario, tuition for first-year law students at U of T has increased to $16,000 from $3,808. The Faculty of Law’s Faculty Council is the driving force behind a plan to charge its first-year students $22,000 per year in tuition by the year 2006. The final decision regarding the hikes rests with the university’s Governing Council.
The rising cost of a law education will decrease the number of Canadian students from low income families that are able to attend law school says Dr. Phillip Berger, one of the speakers at the event. Dr. Berger is an associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine. He feels the demographics of U of T’s law school already show a group of students who statistically come from a much wealthier place in society than the general public. In his speech, he questioned why “students from affluent and wealthy families are massively over represented in law school.” He also questioned what increasing tuition would do to correct this inequity. He insisted that as more and more law students incur more and more debt paying for their education, the lucrative practice of corporate law will be an increasingly popular way for them to pay it back. He contends this will draw resources away from the less financially attractive areas of the law, such as legal aid. He thinks this trend will put increased stress on the legal aid system to the detriment of the less wealthy portions of society.
First-year U of T medical student Althea Barthos places part of the blame for the increases in tuition for medical students on the shoulders of the provincial government. "The university can't make up the shortfall [in revenue] from the cutbacks," she said. She thinks the current provincial government is jeopardizing the future of health care to win the upcoming election, and that an increasing number of medical students will specialize in areas of medicine that are profitable enough to allow them to pay back
their student loans. She says her tuition this year was $17,500.
Rahool Agarwal is a first-year law student who attended the protest to “hear new ideas and get informed.” He dismisses the idea that the tuition increases are necessary in order for the U of T’s law school to compete internationally. Agarwal thinks that trying to attract well-paid professors from American universities is pointless, because even with the increases in tuition, the faculty could never hope to offer compensation as high as in the United States. Agarwal feels that Canadian law schools where the tuition
price tag is much lower, such as the University of Victoria, still have excellent reputations, and that U of T does not need to be charging students as much as it is currently.
Other speakers at the protest included Kathy Laird, the director of Legal Aid Services for the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, Hudson Janisch, a
U of T Law professor, and Robin Rix, U of T’s Student Law Society president.
Candidates from the provincial Liberal and New Democratic parties also spoke at the event, as well as several other guests. The majority of the speakers urged the Governing Council not to ratify the pending tuition increases for law students.
