In a speech at Carleton University on last month, Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty announced that the provincial tuition freeze will end by September 2006.
Although the government never promised more than a two-year freeze and has strongly hinted that it wouldn’t be extended, this announcement produced a strong reaction.
One response has been to cry out at the government’s unfairness for continuing to saddle impoverished students with prohibitive education costs. This is a popular reaction, but it’s misinformed.
Every side of the tuition debate is arguing that a qualified student should not be prevented from getting a college or university education because of cost. But a tuition freeze is not the best way to accomplish this and it’s certainly not the best way to ensure stable funding for our post-secondary education system.
Those advocating an end to the tuition freeze have two main arguments. The first is that a post-secondary education benefits the student economically. Certainly those who have this education tend to earn more in the workplace than those who don’t. Therefore, the student should pay some of the cost of providing that education.
The counter-argument is that an educated population is good for everybody because it creates a more skilled and profitable workforce and it helps create a more enlightened public. Education should therefore be publicly funded.
The fact is, both these arguments have merit; both the student and society at large benefit from education. The logical conclusion is that both parties should be paying, which is exactly how the system works.
The other main argument for raising tuition is that there are those who can afford to pay more, so lower tuition just subsidizes the rich.
The best way to then make education accessible is to subsidize the poor instead through student loans, scholarships and grants.
Student groups, however, argue that this approach is flawed. There’s always a risk of people slipping through the cracks in this kind of system. What about the people who aren’t quite poor enough to qualify for the new aid? What about the poor who don’t quite fit the profile spelled out on the aid forms?
This is an excellent point which raises important questions. But it is not an argument against the idea of making education more accessible by subsidizing poor students through aid. It’s an argument against doing so badly.
The solution is not to freeze tuition, but to try to create a fair, flexible and accountable student loan system.
No one should have to give up a post-secondary education because they can’t afford it, but freezing tuition simply isn’t an effective way of achieving this because it doesn’t target those students in need.
Ontario universities and colleges also need increasing tuition revenue to continue providing consistent quality service and the public purse simply cannot afford to pick up the tab.
What we need is regulated, predictable tuition increases combined with a student aid system to help those in need. This combination gives families the ability to first plan for the costs of their children’s education and then gives them somewhere to turn to if they can’t afford the final bill.
Those who want increased tuition aren’t necessarily trying to restrict access to education. Mostly, they just have different ideas about how to ensure access, and some of those ideas make a lot of sense.