After a two-year test run, the University of Toronto is moving forward with plans to fully implement its controversial “flat fees” system for assessing tuition fees on students enrolled in the Faculty of Arts and Science. Beginning this fall, students admitted in September 2009 or later and taking more than three credits will pay a flat program fee instead of paying separately for individual courses. Students admitted before 2009 will continue to pay per-course until the end of the 2013–14 academic year.
Students taking three or more credits must now pay a flat fee. For the past two years, the threshold had been four credits. The change was part of the program framework approved in spring 2009, although student groups say the change should require its own vote.
For years, the flat fee structure has been strongly opposed by organized student groups, who argue it amounts to a tuition hike and forces students to pay for courses they don’t or can’t take. While structure was implemented to help the debt-laden faculty, critics say it forces students to rush through their studies and discriminates against low-income students.
No vote
The most recent clash between student groups and the administration over the issue was at the Governing Council meeting held at UTM on May 19. The Stop Flat Fees Campaign, a joint initiative of UTSU and ASSU, had organized a protest around an expected vote on the new structure, having earlier collected roughly 4,000 signatures on petition cards opposing flat fees. Protestors then found out that the meeting would hold no vote on the overall policy.
“I was disappointed that there wasn’t a vote,” said Katharine Ball, incoming ASSU president. “To see that there wasn’t a vote on that and it’s moving down a full credit was really disappointing,” she said.
“How does a school, how does a public institution approve a tuition fee in- crease of 66 per cent without a vote? It’s unbelievable,” said UTSU President Danielle Sandhu. “I think it’s a strong failure. It’s a failure of the university in terms of what’s best for students here, what’s best for this as an institution, a public institution.”
University officials, however, say these groups were simply mistaken about the meeting’s agenda. “I’m not sure precisely where there has been some confusion about this,” said Provost Cheryl Misak, U of T’s chief academic officer.
Misak said that when Governing Council originally approved the resolution adopting the flat fee proposal in May 2009, there was never any requirement that there be a re-vote at a later date. Rather the May 2009 resolution called for revising the flat fee structure if a preliminary evaluation of the fee’s impact in 2011 showed that such a revision of flat fees was required, said Misak.
The 2009 resolution states that “prior to 2011–12, an evaluation of the impact of the model” is to be completed by a committee and submitted to Governing Council, “to enable consideration of revision of the implementation plan, if such is required.”
The group that completed the evaluation, known as the Program Fee Monitoring Committee, submitted its full report to Governing Council at the May meeting. The report’s general conclusion was that “most of the concerns expressed in the discussions leading up to the policy being approved have not materialized” and that “there appear to be no major shifts [in student behaviour] at this time that present cause for concern.”
Misak said that the report essentially showed that the flat fee model did not need to be revised or formally put to another vote. “In some way, yes there is a vote,” she said. “The facts are looked at by the report of the Program Fee Monitoring Committee and they’re discussed and if the facts required revision then there would have been a revision; but the facts were really, really straightforward.”
Committee issues
The 10-member monitoring committee, which included three students, looked at the impact of the flat fees model for the one and a half years it had been in effect. The committee looked at the model’s effects on students’ academic performance, student life and extra-curricular activity, enrollment behaviour and whether the number
of completed courses had changed, as well as the model’s main criticisms. Students serving on the committee raised several issues in e-mails to The Varsity. Peng You, former president of the Psychology Students’ Association, said that overall he felt his concerns were taken seriously and that he was satisfied with the final report but that more data was needed since it only looked at one and a half cohorts. Jesse Chisolm-Beatson, another member, said that there were some questions about the reliability of the focus group used to examine the effects of the fee on student life and extracurricular activity.
“When they did the focus group portion of [the report] they didn’t really poll a lot of students so it wasn’t very cohesive to the student body,” echoed Ball. “It’s not a very good sample of students.” There were plans for four focus groups with 20 participants each, according to the report. In total, 94 students registered though only 41 attended.
Beatson pointed out that that the committee uncovered several unforeseen problems with the flat fee model. The committee found a trend showing students holding on to courses longer since there was no financial penalty for dropping courses past the drop date as long as the student stayed at or above 4.0 credits. “There were plenty of stories from the registrar’s offices about students unable to get into required courses because they were full,” wrote Beatson. “While the final report does make mention of this, it could have perhaps highlighted some of the new problems discovered more prominently in its conclusion.”
“We thought there were a lot of problematic correlations that were being suggested by that report and that essentially it was designed to show a positive reflection on flat fees,” said Sandhu.
Meric Gertler, the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science, defended committee’s work in an interview with The Varsity. He also responded to criticisms that the committee was little more than a rubber-stamp body that lacked teeth from its beginning. “None of these people had a vested interest in, you know, one set of findings or another,” he said. “None of them had a vested interest in supporting the program fee.” Gertler pointed to the fact that the committee included student leadership as well as college registrars and undergraduate coordinators.
“What they have reported is straight-up results,” he said. “They make no recommendations, they simply report on what they’re asked to report on. I think it’s safe to say that on the basis of two years’ information, in some cases a year and a half, they have done about all the analysis they could possibly do. They’ve investigated all of the questions that were top-of-mind during the debate and they have reported in a pretty clear, fair and unbiased way.”
Faculty deficit
At full implementation, the university expects the new model to generate $9.5 million in additional revenue, according to a brief provided to Governing Council.
“When I became dean it was pretty clear that our expenditures each year were outrunning our revenues by a significant margin,” said Gertler on the faculty’s motivation for changing to a per-course system. He recalled the faculty facing deficits of anywhere from $10 to $20 million dollars. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that in circumstances like that you really have to explore every available option in order to be able to close that gap and find the means to rein- vest in teaching capacity and learning experiences. That was what really triggered it for us.”
Gertler added that a priority for money generated from the flat fee structure was hiring more professors. He stressed that the money wouldn’t simply be spent on faculty house- keeping.
“We do expect students will see re- ally tangible improvements in their learning experience as a result of the new investments that this funding makes possible,” he said.
Despite such reassurances, opposition to flat fees, expressed by organized groups like the Stop Flat Fees Campaign, remains fervent.
Campaign tactics
Opponents say they intend to continue campaigning and lobbying against the model, though some student leaders admit that the question of how best to continue with their efforts will require some time to think through.
“As of right now, I’m not really sure where it’s going for the upcoming year but we’re thinking about it, and I’m definitely thinking about it, and ASSU is for sure,” said Ball. “We’re just not sure yet exactly where we’re going, but it’s in the works for September.”
With a provincial election this fall, some flat fees opponents have already tried to elevate the is- sue to the provincial level, where they hope for more success than their results from university administration.
However, it is unclear whether any of the parties would be willing or able to intervene. In an e-mail, a spokesperson for John Milloy, minister of training, colleges and universities, defended the program fee model, saying it provided universities with a more predictable source of revenue, and that universities had the flexibility to set fees as long as outcomes aligned with provincial policy. A spokesperson for Rosario Marchese, the NDP’s education critic, said that the party was opposed to the structure but stopped short of saying it was promising to work to re- verse flat fees if elected.
Some prominent critics of UTSU say they think the string of disappointments for opponents of flat fees over the last several years might be beginning to take a toll on student morale. “I don’t think that they believe that they’ll be successful at U of T,” said third-year student Brent Schmidt on whether UTSU can actually influence university administration.
“I think that if they think they’re going to be successful, they’re going to be successful on a political level, not on a campus level. I don’t think that they think they can have any direct or short-term impact on admin being who they are now.” Schmidt, who ran for the position of VP inter- nal in March, said that he is strongly opposed to flat fees, but disagreed about the tactics employed by UTSU and other groups, which he called overly aggressive.
Others were even more skeptical about motivations for continuing the campaign given the fact that the flat fee structure has already been implemented
“‘Drop Fees’ is a wonderful bullet point to have in your platform, but the question is ‘Where are the results?’”, said Matthew Gray, who also ran in the UTSU election.
“I don’t know if it’s something that can be reversed. I don’t really know how realistic it is for it to be reversed especially considering the budget shortfalls which the faculty is facing.
“When their strategies are so outlandish and unrealistic in terms of consulting the administration with representing student interests, I think that it becomes kind of an unrealistic thing to promise and something which they can’t really deliver.”
Sandhu responded that she hadn’t heard of anyone saying the campaign was misleading.
“I’ve never had a student come up to me, a member, who was concerned about that,” said Sandhu. “I don’t think there’s anything misleading about the campaign or [its] possibility.
“In fact it’s that kind of approach that limits students from being able to achieve victories together. We really need to make sure that all of us are coming together to work for the benefit of our entire membership.”
A new normal?
Whether student leaders can actually overturn flat fees might not matter. Many students remain vehemently opposed to the new fee structure.
A dilemma often cited by student groups involves financial aid. Most financial aid programs are only available to full-time students. Some students take three credits, the threshold of a full-time load, while working part-time. This allows low-income students to both work and qualify for loans and assistance.
Because the flat fee system charges all full-time students the equivalent of five courses, students groups argue that the poorest students won’t be able to finance their education.
Another common grievance is that students will fast-track their education instead of exploring the opportunities a post-secondary education offers.
University officials dismiss such arguments, saying that some students are stuck in the old, per-course mentality. “What students are getting is a program,” said Misak, when asked whether it was unfair to charge students on the basis of their program instead of the courses they were taking.
“What you get at the end of your time at the University of Toronto, whether it be in pharmacy or Arts and Science, is you get a degree and that degree consists of a whole bunch of things: a number of courses, sometimes there are experiential learning components, internships; each degree is slightly different but that’s what you’re getting, you’re getting a degree.”
Whether students will eventually adapt to flat fees as a normal fee structure remains an open question. Sandhu said she didn’t think student opposition was ready to let the issue rest. “In terms of being optimistic, I think if people are willing to come together to work together, there is room for this.”
Full disclosure: Matthew Gray is a member of The Varsity Board of Directors and current Chief Operating Officer.
