Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘tuition freeze’

That’s the theory behind this site: We are the 1 percent. It contains manifestos of a bunch of people who claim to be part of the American super-rich, but who feel that it’s unfair that they aren’t taxed their fair share.

Now, admittedly, this concept might be better if more of the people in the blog’s photos actually said what they were doing to help the 99%, besides writing statements on paper. But the spirit ain’t bad.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has its share of problems, namely, the lack of any coherent demands, the lack of focus, and the general sense of a movement with lots of gripes but few answers. But they’re not wrong to point out the negative consequences of large income disparity in the US. And while the income gap isn’t nearly as dramatic in Canada, there’s a strong sense that we’re moving in that direction.

The fact is, while these people claim to be in the so-called 1% of Americans, and most of us aren’t, we’re pretty much ALL of us part of the luckiest 0.00001% in the world – we hit the mother of all jackpots just by being born here in Canada, having enough food to eat, a roof over our heads, security and safety and education and healthcare and the chance to grow to be an adult. It’s worth it for all of us to think about how we can do more to give something back.

(Not for nothing, but this goes back to my long-standing call for Quebec to raise university tuition for those who can afford it and increase bursaries and financial aid for those who can’t. More access to opportunity benefits everyone. Just sayin’.)

This might be one of the shortest minority governments on record, if Charest’s budget gets defeated on June 1st, as expected given the PQ and the ADQs opposition to it. We could have new elections as early as July.

The irony is that, for the most part, I actually think the budget presented by the Liberals was good. I don’t often say that about budgets. But Charest’s team had the right priorities here: Lowering taxes to reduce our overly outrageous tax burden, increasing funding for healthcare and education, ending the crippling handcuffs on universities by lifting the tuition freeze gradually while supplementing with additional loans and bursaries, and additional investment in city infrastructure, while cutting spending in a whole host of other areas.

Sure, the budget’s not without its problems. But the ADQ and the PQ have both put themselves in the position now of toppling a government to force an election because they oppose tax cuts. Where else in the world could political parties believe that this would earn them votes in a subsequent election?

Unfortunately, in Quebec’s political climate, this has a fair shot of working. Which is, in a nutshell, exactly what’s wrong with our society. People want more spending and they will pay more taxes for it, and when they complain about the taxes, the politicians can just point to Ottawa and blame the “evil Federal government” for creating the “fiscal imbalance” (you know, the one that Jean Charest took credit for solving right before the last election).

If the ADQ and the PQ both make good on their threats to bring down this government by voting against the budget, then Charest’s political career will be over. Marois’s election coronation as PQ leader will be fast-tracked, and Dumont will humbly refuse to try to form an opposition government, even though he might be asked to do so, because it would be bad form. And one of the two will probably get elected.

Shame. Just when I was starting to think that this Liberal/ADQ minority government was actually working surprisingly well.

That pretty much sums up the anticlimactic end of the student strike. The Liberals continued their tradition of being utterly incapable of defending an unpopular decision or having any backbone whatsoever. The student unions learned that violence and disruption is effective.

In the meantime, the students continued to make asses of themselves and an unholy mess of things as they protested at Wal-Mart. This was an obvious repayment to the labour unions for all the money they gave them to fund the protests in effort to topple Charest’s government and restore their buddies the PQ into power. Not that it would require much effort at this point. Roadkill would have an easier time getting re-elected than Charest, who is down to a 23% approval rating according to the latest CROP poll.

Anyway, there were reports of women and children shopping at Wal-Mart being pushed and shoved around. The protesters blocked entrance to the store with shopping carts and decided to provoke police yet again. Traffic was tied up on the Decarie Expressway for hours.

The bottom line is that this “victory” for the students is actually a massive loss for Quebec. No government will try again to cut bursaries for years. And nobody will even dare suggest lifting the tuition freeze; they’ll be too scared. That means that Quebec’s postsecondary education will remain chronically underfunded and will continue to fall behind the rest of North America in terms of quality.

What many students fail to understand about education is that it’s an investment. And, like any investment, you have to put in some money and effort up front to get a payoff later. Ironically, if tuition was double or triple what it is (in other words, a bit closer to what it should be), we wouldn’t see such massive strikes and protests. Students who had to cough up serious money for their classes would actually attend rather than engage in a massive strike where the chief victims are themselves.

The unions know exactly what they’re doing. But most of the students who are tacitly or overtly supporting them don’t understand. They think it’s “cool” to fight for the communist ideal, but I can’t imagine any of them would ever want to experience life under true communism. They talk about “accessible” education, but have no concept of the notion of accessible quality education.

To Jean Charest: grow a spine. Quickly. You desperately need one.

To the students: You love communism so much? Fine, go live in a communist country and quit hassling Wal-Mart shoppers and Friday afternoon commuters… you know, people with actual jobs. Come to think of it, just get a friggin’ job and quit griping about a measly $2,000 in university tuition.

It’s pretty clear that the student strikes no longer have much to do with the students.

Last week, the McGill Daily reported that the PQ youth wing and that major Quebec labour unions were supporting the student strikers, in an effort to topple the Charest Liberal governement and get the PQ re-elected. Yesterday, the Liberals angrily accused the unions of funding the strikers, lashing out at them for mixing issues:

Liberal party whip Norm MacMillan says unions appear to be piggybacking on the student strike in order to advance their own contract negotiations with the government.

“Everybody’s in negotiations right now: civil servants, teachers in universities and CEGEPS,” he notes.

MacMillan says some union money may even have paid for buses to help the students mobilize large demonstrations.

The university students federation doesn’t deny some funding has come from outside groups.

It’s not exactly news that the labour unions in Quebec overwhelmingly support the PQ and have been engaged in a bitter battle with the Liberals since their election. And the student cause seems to be a popular one; a Léger poll conducted two weeks ago found that 24% of people think that the government should cave to the student demands, and another 48% believe that a portion of the $103 million in cuts should be re-invested into the bursaries program. Furthermore, 44% of people said they would be willing to forego a tax cut in order to put the money back into the bursary program.

In the media circus surrounding the protests, rock-throwing at police, arrests and threats of cancelled semesters, the voice of dissenters is getting drowned out.

I’m talking about the students who actually want to go to class. The ones who want to graduate eventually. The ones who recognize the value of their education, and are willing to make an investment into it. Though disorganized and quiet, there are an awful lot of them. And they’re tired of being deprived of classes they paid for, of having their opportunities that they’ve worked hard for yanked away from them, and of the general attitude among their fellow students and even professors that they’re “selfish” or just plain “wrong”.

Times like this, I’m glad I’m not still a student. Because it’s tough enough dealing with the pressure without having to face the Quebec reality: that this is a socialist province where everyone seems to think that society “owes” them. Everyone wants to take out of the system, nobody wants to contribute into it. This is how we end up with massive economic failure. (But of course, the students and the labour unions have a perfect solution to this: tax the rich more. Never mind what happens when all the rich leave the province; they’ll just tax the next richest.)

Or, to quote the CASSEE spokespeople:

Members of the CASSEE say they’ve tried holding demonstrations.

Blocking traffic and offices works better, they say.

“We started by drawing up petitions, we held protests; our pressure tactics have escalated,” said Xavier Lafrance, another CASSEE spokesperson, and a political science student at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal.

[ . . . ]

Funding for higher education could be raised, they said, by ensuring private corporations pay their taxes – in full.

[ . . . ]

“Aggressive unionism is a Quebec tradition,” added Mathieu Cousineau DeGarie, a third CASSEE spokesperson.

“We at the CASSEE want to revive that tradition.”

So they continue to strike. And I continue to rant. Because nothing will improve while the student unions are allowed to hold the Quebec education system – and its students – hostage. No government has the political capital to change the situation; only the students can make a difference by rallying to oppose their oppressors. Sadly, their voices seem too scattered, and students opposed to the strike have no choice but to grumble and sigh.

It’s lunacy on parade all over again, as Quebec student agitators take to the streets to protest the cardinal Quebec government sin of replacing bursaries with loans (i.e. making people actually pay back their handouts… gasp!). And in the usual fashion, the protestors are acting with reckless disregard for personal safety, property, or even the interests of the students they’re supposedly defending, as they wreak havoc all over town:

A five-hour blockade at the Port of Montreal ended yesterday in a standoff with riot police and the arrest of six students protesting against cuts to financial aid.

The typical accusations of “police provocation” on the part of the student shit-disturbers followed, of course.

It goes beyond mere rock throwing and idiocy, though. Votes to strike at several university campuses are threatening the semesters of students who actually want to attend class. Most of my friends are absolutely livid that their semesters may be delayed or even cancelled. To quote one friend at UQAM:

Now the students are saying they don’t give a d*mn if our term is cancelled. I am really pissed at them, and considering suing my student association. If it is cancelled, I want my $1000 back. It is not by throwing that much money out the window that we are “helping future generations”… And then these idiots throw rocks at policemen and block streets.

But the union leaders and protest agitators don’t actually give a crap about the students they’re supposed to represent. None of them care about losing out on class time, since few if any actually ever set foot in a classroom. None of them care about graduating since they don’t actually intend to ever graduate. None of them care about the effect of a delayed semester on summer or other job prospects, because none of them actually ever intend to get a job. Never mind that Quebec university tuition is so cheap, they could pay it off easily if they actually got a job instead of spending their days throwing rocks at police. Where’s the fun in that?

It’s all well and good to try to protect students against spiraling or unreasonable tuition hikes. But things have gotten way out of control. The tuition freeze is crippling Quebec education, but no government can lift it without paying a severe political price. This has disastrous long-term effects on the health of Quebec’s economy and society in general. Accessible education is one thing; accessible quality education is another altogether. If the student agitators get their way, Quebec will have free education that’s completely, utterly useless, creating an entire generation of people who intend on living off the backs of the state.

Unfortunately, the students who understand this basic fact are disorganized and lack a powerful political voice. So as the strikes and protests continue, who is going to stand up for the rights of students who actually want an education?

The FEUQ is spending $66,000 of student money to run a television ad campaign slamming the Charest government for its decision to convert $103 million of bursaries into loans:

The FEUQ is demanding that the Charest government rescind its decision to transform $103 million worth of student bursaries into loans.

Federation spokespeople maintain that this move is not an effort to rebuild an image some might say was tarnished by the violent incidents that occured at their Monticello demonstration last week, but rather to make the public aware of the issues at stake.

Just to clarify: they’re mad because students will actually have to repay the money they get from the government. Cause that would mean students would actually have to get jobs when they graduate… you know, the kind that pay money.

It’s so much better to live off of handouts that nobody expects you to ever repay, isn’t it? Then you can stay in school forever, taking one class at a time that you never attend, and spend your time organizing protests and drinking fair-trade coffee.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the student protests and strikes are jokes. Quebec students pay a pittance in tuition compared to anywhere else in North America. But the way the student unions work, the people elected to leadership are the ones who promise more strikes, more fights, more protests.

The tuition freeze in Quebec is sort of like ethanol subsidies in Iowa. Everyone knows that they’re damaging, but it is suicidal for any government to even suggest revoking them. And so we have a university system that is cash-strapped and an endless cycle of students coming to believe that it’s more honourable to live off of handouts than to actually work for anything.

*Sigh*.

An opinion piece in today’s Gazette speaks of the “dishonourable generation” – in the writer’s words, the boomers who now seek to deny future generations the benefits and advantages that they had. Patrick Barnard, a CEGEP teacher, laments the fact that what was good enough for them seems now to be “too good” for their kids. Specifically, he’s talking about the government’s proposal to reform or altogether eliminate the CEGEP system in Quebec:

The dishonourable generation went to CEGEP and university, enjoyed relatively small classes, received scholarships – all the result of public funds channeled through the state. Now those same people have become private and public managers who wish to wrest those benefits from their own progeny. They are the “chicken hawks” of public policy.

I don’t agree that all of the baby boomer generation fits into this category. Most of them – my parents’ generation, in fact – only want what’s best for their kids and grandkids.

But on the CEGEP issue, I think that Barnard is right on target. Quebec may be a messed-up place, but IMHO the CEGEP system was one of the best ideas that any provincial government ever had. Maybe I’m biased – my two years of CEGEP were two of the best years of my life – but the system itself makes an inherent kind of sense. After all, how many people really know after high school what direction they want their lives to take? It wasn’t until I had the opportunity to take a number of different kinds of courses in CEGEP that I had an idea of what field to pursue in university. Not only that, but I learned how to work to a college standard. There’s no way that my high school experience would have even come close to preparing me for a university workload.

CEGEP is a time to adapt to a college-like environment without the stress of a university workload. It’s a time to narrow one’s area of focus slightly while avoiding having to over-specialize just yet. It’s a chance for people to learn a technical career without needing to go to university at all, if they so choose, or to learn the basics of a pre-university field without being too restricted. It’s a chance to make the transition from being a high school “kid”, subject to strict rules and regulations, and an independant university “adult”. And best of all, if you attend a public CEGEP, it’s absolutely free!

My own CEGEP experience was great… an amazing social environment and school atmosphere, excellent teachers, interesting classes, and lasting friendships. I’m not suggesting that everyone loved it as much as I did… but most people seem to enjoy it – students and teachers alike. More importantly, it works.

The solution isn’t to eliminate CEGEPs but to expand their programs and funding. At the same time, the university tuition freeze should be lifted. This would give students access to quality free education at the CEGEP level, and provide them with the option of attending well-funded, world-class universities upon graduation. And by the time they get to that point, thanks to CEGEP they’ll have a fair idea of what they want to study, thus saving wasted money on a year of core courses or on program changes. Hopefully, the government will recognize this and save the CEGEP system before a successful experiment is dumped out the window.

Yves Engler has an editorial in today’s Gazette about what the Liberal government should do, in his opinion, to help make university education more accessible to students.

Engler, with his involvement with the past CSU and his far left political views, has frequently criticized government policy on education. Today’s editorial avoids some of his more radical views that he has put forth in articles in the Link, and sticks to a more reasonable position:

As a result of cutbacks and fee increases, the average debt load of Quebec residents graduating from an undergraduate program is $13,100 and climbing. Students from less affluent backgrounds are finding it increasingly difficult to attend university.

[ . . . ]

Around the world, governments are concluding that education is fundamental to society’s economic, social and political development. That is the reason the U.S. government has gradually increased its share of GDP allocated to education to the point it is now greater than Canada’s. It’s also why Ireland and Wales recently eliminated tuition fees.

Here in Quebec, to improve post-secondary education the new Liberal government should:

- Significantly increase funding;

- Maintain the tuition freeze;

- Prohibit further increases in ancillary fees;

- Gradually transform student aid from loans into needs-based bursaries;

- Progressively eliminate differential fees.

These steps would be a wise investment in Quebec’s future.

All very well and good. But here’s why I think that Yves Engler is wrong:

Engler is talking about education as a right. Everyone, he says, should have the right to a degree. I would amend that by saying that everyone should have the opportunity to obtain a degree. But not everyone should just have a degree hand-delivered and gift-wrapped. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be worth anything.

The government already funds elementary, high school, and here in Quebec even college education. And everyone has the right to go to university. Everyone even has the opportunity – provided, of course, that they earn it. Scholarships and financial aid are widely available to deserving students. Tuition is more than reasonable; in fact, it’s the lowest in Canada. And if Engler is griping about the price of a Concordia degree, he should try having to pay for an American university; he might appreciate the measly $2,500 a year that Quebec students pay a whole lot more.

What exactly is the “right” to a degree? Not all degrees are created equal. The value of a degree from Harvard, for example, far exceeds the value of the same degree from Concordia, even if the student worked equally hard to achieve it and obtained an equally high grade point average. Everyone knows this, and expects it. But why is that?

Unfortunately, the answer is usually money. The top professors are attracted by research funds or high salaries. The big donors will fund a university with an excellent reputation much more than one with a mediocre one. The top universities have lower student-teacher ratios, top facilities, and prominent professors and graduates.

University education isn’t simply a right, it’s an investment. And either way, society pays, with the expectation of a return on that investment. Where my opinion differs from Engler’s is in who should make that investment. Taxpayers already fund most of a university education for students. And I do agree that partial funding is necessary; other problems are created when tuition is allowed to spiral out of control. But what happens now is that students have absolutely no concept of the true value of their education. They grudgingly pay their $2,500 a year and figure that’s the cost, when in reality their education is worth many times that. This makes it easier for them to float around school year after year, not getting a degree, just wreaking havoc and never graduating and moving into the real world, because it’s so cheap. Maybe if tuition was closer to the true cost of an education, it would be more appreciated and people would take it more seriously.

Scholarships and bursaries can be helpful. But student loans are already low-interest and have flexible repayment terms. The reason that society funds education so heavily is the same as the reason students go to university in the first place: investment. And as an investment, it should pay off for students down the road, so why shouldn’t they be expected to pay off their student loans in order to give back some of that investment into society to help fund education for the next batch of students coming through?

If tuition were raised, more students could receive financial aid who need it. At the same time, the universities in Quebec would receive badly-needed funding in order to recruit top professors, fund vital research, improve facilities, and build a name that puts them in the top rungs of world-class educational institutions. And then everyone – graduates as well as wider society – would reap the benefits in the form of more business investment, better employment, higher salaries, and a more productive economy.

Obviously, governments are afraid to propose lifting the tuition freeze because of negative reactions by student unions and groups like the CSU or the CFS. The Liberals were afraid of losing votes if they campaigned on that basis. So until a government has the courage to say what needs to be said, and raise tuition to a more reasonable level, education will continue to be woefully underfunded, hampering our ability to compete on a global scale. That is the real tragedy here.