Much of the media coverage of the Quebec student protests has dismissed the protestors as spoiled children trying to protect their unfair privilege (Quebec has the lowest tuition fees in the country).
The vast majority of today’s university students do in fact come from relatively well-off families. But rather than weakening their position, this supports the protestors’ claims that we have a serious problem with access to education — a problem that would only be worsened by tuition hikes.
Education
The Report of the Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services, headed by economist Don Drummond (the Drummond Report), was released on Feb. 15. It contained more than 600 recommendations, the stated aim of which was to enable the Ontario government to return to balanced budgets by the year 2017-18.
Power of Youth: Youth and community-led activism in Canada, edited by Brigette DePape, explores grassroots activism across a variety of themes. It shows the concrete work youth are doing, as well as highlighting challenges they face, lessons learned, ways forward, and bold visions for the future.
This report was produced with the collaboration of Ogijiita Pimachiowin Kinamatwin, The Community Education Development Association, The Canadian CED Network, Maintain the Momentum and Make Poverty History Manitoba.
"In thinking about this issue of Our Schools/Our Selves, I took an inspiration from Battleground Schools. It is an encyclopaedia of conflict in education, a project of two University of British Columbia education professors, Sandra Matheson and Wayne Ross. The idea was to have short articles that frame some of the many areas of conflict over education — conflicts that grow out of social, cultural, political and technological changes and differences.
For many grade 12 students spring is university application season. But in Western Canada, youth living in families with an annual income over $100,000 are still more than twice as likely to attend university than youth with family income under $25,000.
This is hardly surprising, given average tuition fees run over $4,800 a year these days, but it’s fundamentally inequitable. It undermines social cohesion and there are real economic costs to all of us when we don’t fully utilize the skills and capabilities of all our citizens.
This study shows that university graduates more than pay off the cost of their undergraduate degrees: degrees mean higher incomes, which mean higher taxes paid into the public treasury.
The fall 2011 issue of Our Schools/Our Selves asks: "If schools are truly to be instruments of social change, how we can ensure that the change we build together is inclusive, empathetic, just and empowering; that it serves students, educators and communities; that it broadens horizons rather than narrowing them; and finally, that its “strings” connect and engage rather than bind and limit?"
This report examines the impact of rising tuition and living costs on the affordability of a university education in Saskatchewan. It concludes that university education in Saskatchewan became more affordable over the past six years as a direct result of the four-year tuition freeze and growing after-tax income. However, since the lifting of the tuition freeze in 2009, tuition has increased by 10.6 per cent, eroding the affordability of a university education for Saskatchewan students.
This fall, as young people make preparations to enter university, some Ontarians may be feeling nostalgic.
But for many Ontario parents, the excitement and pride that comes with watching their child take this important step is tempered by the growing and often untenable financial burden it also represents.