The World's Still Turning?

The Brainwashing of a Generation, Part 1: Tuition Fees

I am a university student. I pay $5000 a year to take five credits, cram my brain full of equations and figures, stress myself to the max to get a good grade, etc. The usual university student fare. I also pay $400 a month rent, plus utilities. There's also the general cost of living (groceries, the occasional night out, supplies, etc). And I'm damned priviledged to be able to do so. No matter the government's lip service to how no one should be unable to attend university because of lack of funds, it's simply a reality that the costs of post-secondary education do keep people out.

The school I go to is nicknamed "The University of Wealthy Ontarians," because of its general conservative, rich-kid reputation. And, you know, I'm coming to see why this is. Aside from the hoardes of girls wearing overly-priced and disturbingly ugly Ugg boots and carrying burdensome Louis Vuitton and Lululemon bags to class, I am also discovering a breed of people I hadn't realized existed: those who don't give a shit about how much money they pay to go to school.

The government announced a while back that the tuition freeze, which has been in place for two years, is going to be lifted next year. The comes on the heels of an announcement that over $7 billion is going to be re-invested into the post-secondary education system. Now tell me, with all this money coming in, why are we going to hike tuition fees? Where, exactly, is this money going? There is no reason for a fee increase.

Ideally, students should be digging their heels into the dirt and going, "heyyyy WAIT A SECOND, no no no, this can't happen." We should be trying to make our voices heard - that we most certainly don't want a tuition fee hike. Instead, our representatives, the Ontario Undergraduate Students Alliance (OUSA) claims that it is impossible to keep tuition fees frozen forever (fine, that's not what we're asking for anyways), and that instead of capping the fees, we should be ensuring that they somehow limit the growth of tuition. This is a group that is supposed to be representing the interests of the undergraduate student body... seems to me that they're doing a pretty shit-tacular job.

So the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) launched a campaign to raise awareness about the tuition fee issue, culminating in a short "referendum" which asked the student body if they supported a tuition increase. The results, published in the Gazette, stated that 94.7% of students are not in favour of a tuition fee hike. This should have been 100%, or closer to it.

There was some "controversy" surrounding the campaign, which was baseless and stupid. The Gazette featured an editorial claiming that the CFS should basically just shut their pie holes, and that everyone already knows students don't want to pay more money, but that we're going to have to anyways, so get over it (this is, of course, very roughly paraphrased). OUSA, the Gazette claims, is the body to which our undergraduate population belongs. Only the Society of Graduate Students (SOGS) is a member of the CFS. Does that make the CFS's claim any less valid? No. In fact, they are doing more for the undergraduate student body than OUSA is.

Several people have informed me that they wouldn't mind an increase in fees, because they are under the impression that the more money they pay, the better quality education they will get. It's funny, because Ontario's universities are consistently ranked top-notch. We're ALREADY getting a damned good education. And they're about to pour $7 billion dollars back into the system. The quality of education is certainly not what is at stake here, but somehow a fair portion of the student body has been brainwashed into believing that everyone would be better off with higher tuition.

I suppose that's all well and good if you can afford it, but the unfortunate truth is that most students can't. And it's the lower-middle-class demographic that is affected the most - those whose parents make maybe a little too much to get all or any of OSAP will perhaps be forced not to attend post-secondary education due to affordability issues.

Article 26 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that:
Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

Continuing to raise the cost of attending post secondary education is unacceptable, especially when there is no immediate need to.
Let's keep education affordable, to everyone.

posted by Steph @ 4:14 PM