Thursday, September 2, 2010 

 

As students return to universities and colleges this fall, a new generation of BC families will be paying record-high tuition fees and accumulating more education-related debt than any cohort since before World War II.

 

No other province has increased tuition fees in the last decade faster than BC. 

 

Tuition fees for most university programs will surpass $5,000 this fall, double what they were in 2000. This amounts to an increase of 500 per cent above the rate of inflation between 2000 and 2010.

 

But don’t be fooled in to thinking that means that there is more cash in the system. Higher tuition fees have merely made up for provincial government neglect.

 

When accounting for inflation, per student funding from the provincial government is lower than it was a decade ago.

 

To help obscure this fact, the BC Liberal platform in 2009 actually counted the tuition fees you pay as money they put into the system.

 

If the provincial contribution to colleges and universities had only been frozen at the rate of inflation in 2001, post-secondary institutions would be getting 15 per cent more funding per-student than they get today.

 

The provincial government will quickly point to the higher earnings of post-secondary graduates to justify ever-increasing fees. Some people estimate the effect of post-secondary education to be between $500,000 to $1 million more in lifetime earnings.

 

But by the government’s own admission, post-secondary education will simply be a requirement for most jobs over the next fifteen years.

 

By that logic, most families of the future will be earning more than $1 million more than today’s high school graduate. 

 

If that doesn't make you feel rich, I don’t blame you. Hypothetical future average earnings in hypothetical economic conditions for jobs that haven’t even been created yet is a risky premise on which to drive tens of thousands of BC families into billions of dollars in education debt.

 

The simple reality is that today’s post-secondary graduates are tomorrow’s average income earners. Your daughter’s teacher. Your mother’s home-care worker. Your mechanic. Only a lucky few will be the next Jim Pattison or Mike Lazaridis. 

 

The value of public post-secondary education in not in question. What is in question is the fairest way to make it affordable for everyone who is qualified.

 

Today’s $5,000 tuition fee model has closed the doors for thousands of lower income British Columbians who are no less deserving of access to tomorrow’s jobs.

 

A future where meaningful access to the workforce relies on post-secondary training—either trades, college, or university—is a sound argument for universal access, not sky-high user fees.

 

Think about primary and secondary school. Where would we be today if we decided 100 years ago to charge the equivalent of 800-plus hours of minimum wage per year of primary school (or likely much higher fees, given the smaller class sizes in K-12).

 

It’s an absurd system to ponder, but why is it okay to build tomorrow’s post-secondary education system on personal debt and financial barriers?

 

The answer to that question depends in part on what the government is prioritizing. A closer look at BC’s books provides one answer.

 

In 2010, the provincial government will take in more revenue from tuition fees than it will from corporate income tax. In other words, tuition fee increases over the last decade have helped to pay for deep corporate tax cuts.

 

These priorities are not in step with what British Columbians value. Polling conducted by Harris-Decima for the Canadian Association of University Teachers found that 85 per cent of British Columbians believe that tuition fees should be reduced. The same poll placed tax cuts as the fourth priority behind improving universal health care, reducing poverty, and investing in universities and colleges.

 

Rather than plunge average families deeper into debt, the provincial government would be wise to invest in access and treat post-secondary education for what it is: a necessary public investment in a prosperous and socially just British Columbia.