As an angry group of students stormed out of Governing Council’s April 26 meeting, some of them threw pamphlets reading “Sentenced to Debt” at scowling council members. This came after GC voted to increase fees by a cross-campus average of about 4.3 per cent per year for domestic undergrads for the next five years-the maximum increase allowed by the government.
The motion sought the approval of the proposed tuition fee schedules for publicly funded and self-funded programs.. The increase will give the university a $274 million increase in revenue, and assumes a $30 million bonus in government funding, despite the fact that the current government has not yet announced the decision
In a noisy Council Chamber packed with students and union members protesting the fee increase, every non-student governor but two, Diana Alli and P.C. Choo, voted for the hike. The vote was held immediately after the last of a series of pleas by student reps and governors to reject the fee boost.
“By increasing our tuition fees, we are doing the dirty work of the McGuinty Liberals for them,” said Emily Shelton, former UTSU VP external.
“Ontario remains the state with the lowest funding for higher education per capita.”
“Certainly, admin can pressure the government to lower fees in ways students can’t,” Shelton stated after the meeting.
“If we had advocacy from the U of T president and, let’s face it, the Canadian academic elite, we’d get much more attention.”
Both president David Naylor, provost Vivek Goel, and most of the other administrators, made statements referencing the enormous deferred maintenance costs in their speeches.
Governor Susan Eng urged students not to protest against GC, but to work with the administration to pressure the provincial government for more funding. “The students must pick their targets and allies in the fight for lowered tuition,” she said.
“The students should be disappointed, they haven’t got what they want,” Eng allowed. “But screaming and shouting will only harden people’s minds. The students have to work together with the administration. They must form a critical mass that the government cannot ignore.”
However, Shelton and UTSU’s incoming VP external Dave Scrivener were far from convinced, that the administration would be a strong ally to their movement. “They appear to be perfectly willing to accept that students must be forced into debt,” Scrivener said.
If GC had voted down the tuition hike, said Eng, the loss of $18 million in tuition revenue would be spread across the entire budget next year, compromising the quality of the university’s facilities.
Choo asked to know where the 30 per cent increase in revenues from provincial government funding had been used.
Ontario’s student access guarantee that “no student offered admission to a program at the University of Toronto should be unable to enter or complete the program due to lack of financial means” is one that remains compromised, said Choo.
Even before the Governing Council meeting began, a group of current and former student leaders camped out in the rain in front of Simcoe Hall to lobby those on their way to the meeting.
“Don’t let them do it!” Walied Khogali catcalled to a passing governor on his way to vote on the fee hike.
Khogali, also president of the UTM Students’ Union, was one of two students dressed as a prisoner, with cards hanging around their necks advertising the cost of their education.
“I know at least two students personally who were unable to continue their program due to unavailability of funds,” Khogali claimed.
He conceded even before the meeting that there was absolutely no possibility that the motion would be voted down.
“However,” he continued, “if the vote is close, it would be a very strong message to whoever is listening.”
Khogali remained undaunted by the near-unanimous ‘Yes’ vote, finding encouragement in the fact that at least some of the governors had voted against the budget.
“I think the meeting was a success in highlighting the plight of students on the issue, and stirred up a debate. Some administrators voted against the motion.”
“I love this institution to no bounds,” declared Saswati Deb, one of six students who sits on the GC. “But a burden like this on students makes student experience much poorer…because student experience involves much more than just the facilities they have available.”
Deb continued, “It’s not just U of T students that have to go though this, students in every institution of higher education in Ontario pay way too much, and worry much too much about their debts. The government really needs to listen to the students.”
