According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, by the academic year 2016–2017 undergraduate tuition at Canadian universities will have tripled in real terms since 1990–1991. Meanwhile, student debt grew 44.1 per cent from 1999 to 2012 according to Statistics Canada’s 2012 Survey of Financial Security. The annual value of full-time Canada Student Loans now exceeds $2 billion.
Compounding the stress of increasing tuition rates on students is the current tightening of provincial funding for universities across the country. These two forces are leading to increasingly strained relations between administrators, academics, and students as universities struggle to balance the resulting tensions. Recognizing the urgency of creating a new dialogue uniting the interests of all stakeholders, on March 4 we issued a challenge to Canada’s political leaders to explore the potential economic and social benefits of free undergraduate tuition as one part of a broad set of reforms to achieve a more sustainable deal for students, faculty, and our universities.
Our call, in the form of a letter open to signature from our counterparts across the country, calls on federal party leaders to commence a national debate on higher education centred on addressing the intersecting crises of student debt, tuition, access, and sustainable funding for universities. We urge early adoption of “a policy of free tuition for all those who require it, including all First Nations students,” followed by a “staged move” toward abolition of all undergraduate tuition “by a date to be defined through a process of constructive consultation between federal and provincial partners.”
It is our basic contention, drawing on evidence from over 40 countries, including the majority of the G-20, that zero tuition would prove fairer, simpler, and more cost effective than the increasingly burdensome and complex fees-loans-debt status quo.
Why would zero tuition be more cost effective?
Annual undergraduate fees currently amount to almost $6 billion. Total costs, however, are much higher due to non-repayment of loans, debt forgiveness, tax credits, and funds allocated to banks and other agencies to run the system. In the current fiscal year, for example, Ottawa is expected to write off nearly 65,000 unpaid loans, to the value of almost $300 million. As tuition increases, so does the burden on students, the incidence of default, and expenditure on often ineffective ameliorative measures such as the Registered Education Savings Plan predominantly benefitting students from higher-income families. None of these unintended consequences or hidden extra costs would be entailed in a zero tuition system, resulting in substantial savings at the provincial level, which could then be made available to support needs-based grant programs to address non-tuition-related debt.
‘Free’ tuition, of course, would have to be paid for. We argue that progressive taxation policies at the federal level would comfortably generate the required $6 billion in new revenue. The last two per cent cut in the GST, for example, continues to cost the federal government $12 billion per annum. In addition, phasing out fees will boost the economy, both by acting as a ‘stimulus measure’ and helping to produce a better-skilled and more innovative and entrepreneurial workforce.
Why would zero tuition be fairer? The fundamental principle behind Canada’s free national health system is the right of all individuals to quality care regardless of their ability to pay. The same principle holds for free schooling up to higher education. As with health care based on insurance, education based on fees always works in the interests of the better off, to the exclusion and detriment of others. Some wonder why students should expect others to pay for their degrees. Those students, however, are more likely to obtain well-paying jobs and so re-fund society through taxation, as opposed to being burdened by loan repayments for years, if not decades, hampering their ability to continue their training, develop their ideas, follow their dreams. Such debt, we argue, is a form of discrimination, no more acceptable than discrimination on other grounds.
Why would zero tuition be simpler? We are confident that a large majority of Canada’s university students regard the current highly complex fees-loans system as iniquitous and inefficient in equal measure. Indebtedness is not a simple matter or logical price for students to pay for learning. And if it becomes a price more and more people are not prepared to pay, the costs will fall on the Canadian economy and society.
We recognize that given the complexity of federal-provincial relations, moving to zero tuition will not be simple. No university, though, can view with equanimity the prospect of further reductions in federal and provincial funding and ever-increasing student fees. Equally, no province can be expected to undertake major reforms of university funding without significant federal support. This is why our appeal is directed at this stage primarily to federal leaders: only they can change the calculus and transform the outlook.
In addition to asking our counterparts to join the ‘Three Presidents’ initiative, we are asking the public to join our campaign, visit our website, and sign our change.org petition urging federal leaders to respond with open minds. For governments to expect tuition to continue climbing yet hope for student debt levels to somehow improve or even stabilize is delusional. We owe it to future generations of Canadian graduates that as many as possible are able to maximize the contribution they make to the world as civil society volunteers, public servants, and entrepreneurs free of the burden of debt.
Brandon Ellis is president of the Cape Breton University (CBU) Students’ Union. Scott Stewart is president of the CBU Faculty Association. David Wheeler is president of CBU.
