history of post-secondary education funding in canada

http://www.cfs-fcee.ca/html/english/research/factsheets/CFS-Fact%20Sheet-Tuition%20Fees.pdf

Post-War (1946 to 1980)
Following the war, the federal government made grants
to attend university widely available to returning soldiers
as part of a veterans re-integration program. The federal
government also began directly funding universities during
this time, and continued to do so after most of the veterans
had graduated. As well, most provincial governments began
providing funding for post-secondary education institutions.
By the mid-1960s, nearly all funding for Canada’s universities
was provided by the federal and provincial governments.
This allowed for tuition fees to be reduced to a token
amount. Not surprisingly, post-secondary education
enrolment exploded, with Canadians from all backgrounds
gaining access to higher education for the first time.
Starting in the mid- to late-1960s, provincial college
systems were established in most provinces. Because of
public investment, tuition fees at most colleges were either
token or nil. This era represented a time when Canadian
governments not only recognised the social and economic
value of mass post-secondary education, they also invested
public funds to reflect that commitment. For a period at
the end of the 1960s, Newfoundland & Labrador abolished
tuition fees altogether.

1980s
In the early 1980s, a value shift began to take root in
governments in Canada and most other western countries,
as most jurisdictions began cutting funding for public
programs. Post-secondary education was an easy target
for these funding cuts. Because universities and colleges
are funded through a combination of both federal and
provincial grants plus user fees, governments were able
to cut funding by forcing students and their families to
subsidise the difference. For various reasons, this option
was not available for governments looking to cut public
investment in health-care or primary and secondary
education. Between the early 1980s and the early 1990s,
average tuition fees at Canadian universities more than
doubled. Average tuition fees at colleges, excluding those
in Québec, more than tripled.

2000 to the present
As access to university and college became increasingly
restricted and students were forced to suffer greater debt
loads in order to afford higher education, the Canadian
Federation of Students was able to successfully turn the
tide in several provinces. Since 2000, every province in
Canada has responded to pressure from students by
introducing tuition fee freezes and increasing provincial
funding for post-secondary education. Tuition fees were
actually reduced in British Columbia (2001), Manitoba (2000),
Newfoundland and Labrador (2002, 2003, and 2004), Prince
Edward Island (2007) and Nova Scotia (2008 and 2009).
Québec was unique among the provinces because it
resisted passing the cost of federal funding cuts on to
students. Before the government increased tuition fees
in 2007, they had been frozen for 35 of the last 40 years.
Currently they are increasing by $100 per year, a smaller
amount than most other provinces. Despite indications from
the governing political party that they may introduce fees,
college remains free in Québec.
At the beginning of the 1990s, average undergraduate
tuition fees in Canada were $1,464. Today, these fees
have risen more than three-fold to $4,917. While inflation
declined by 0.8% this past year, tuition fees increased 3.6%.2

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D: there was no point rephrasing it. The Federation of Students PDF file has a nice summary.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/091020/dq091020b-eng.htm

Canadian full-time students in undergraduate programs faced the same increase in tuition fees (+3.6%) for the 2009/2010 academic year as they did a year earlier.

On average, undergraduate students paid $4,917 in tuition fees in 2009/2010, compared with $4,747 in 2008/2009.

In comparison, between August 2008 and August 2009, inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) declined 0.8%. During the same 12-month period in the previous year, the CPI rose 3.5%.

Tuition fees increased in all but three provinces this fall. Fees remained unchanged in Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick, while they declined in Nova Scotia (-3.1%) for a second year in a row.

Two provinces ended freezes on tuition fees with increases — Manitoba (+4.3%) and Saskatchewan (+3.4%). Elsewhere, tuition fee increases ranged from 2.0% in British Columbia to 5.0% in Ontario. Ontario's increase was the limit legislated by the Ontario government.

On average, undergraduate students in Ontario also paid the highest fees in Canada at $5,951. Students in Nova Scotia had the second-highest average tuition fees at $5,696.

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http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-004-x/2006001/9183-eng.htm

Trends in university tuition fees

Between 1995-1996 and 2001-2002, and after accounting for inflation, tuition fees rose by 132% in medicine, 168% in dentistry, and 61% in law, compared to only 34% in all undergraduate programs in Canada (Figure 1). These overall increases at the national level were largely driven by trends observed in Ontario, where tuition fees in professional programs were deregulated in 1998. In contrast, Quebec and British Columbia largely maintained their policy of regulating fees over the period 1995-1996 to 2001-2002. Other provinces had already deregulated fees or had experimented with deregulation to varying degrees.
In Ontario, tuition fees rose dramatically in all three professional programs over the period 1995-1996 to 2001-2002. In medicine and dentistry, the increases were particularly large (241% and 315%, respectively). In law, tuition fees also rose by a considerable amount (141%). In contrast, tuition fees fell moderately in all three programs in British Columbia (between 10% and 12%). In Quebec, tuition fees fell by 9% in law programs; in medicine and dentistry, the increase in tuition fees was relatively small, though not inconsequential (29% and 14%, respectively). In Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, the increases in tuition fees were situated somewhere in between the two extremes of Ontario on one end of the spectrum, and Quebec and British Columbia on the other.

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Comments.
Great. Instead of the bad old days when the sons of doctors became doctors, now the good new days have the sons AND daughters of doctors becoming doctors.
The professions - and social mobility- have not been this elusive in generations.

Notice anything about the tuition chart? Yup. My "benign neglect" model holds up, well, perfectly.
I'll show in the coming week that this prediction also proves true to student loan rates and repayment terms.

The tuition rate bottomed out about a decade before I attended university. Keep in mind I'm 38 and was born summer 1971. Putting me mid-Gen-X in birth time.
So we'd expect the following from the 'benign neglect model:
1) tuition rates decrease for early Boomers
2) tuition rates remain low until late Boomers are done with school, THEN
3) Boomers perceive low tuition rates- and higher taxes suddenly as a problem to be solved.
Since they were done with education and had entered the workplace, their perspective shifted.
To that of cheap-ass taxpayer. Instead of social-program-swindling students.

I'll touch on how easy the student loan system was to default on for Boomers.
They were all but encouraged to default on their student loans by incentives!
Then, of course, once they had done so, they then over-reacted to their generation's own excesses by 'tough love' - getting tough on Gen-X.

Am I bitter? You're damn right I am.
I started university the very year student loan grants were done away with.
Then faced 10% annual tuition increases, leading tuition to double in less than a decade.
I finished university within a couple years of the new no-default-possible student loans rules.
I deeply regret attempting to pay it off. I took 14 what I should have taken 2 years to do. Which is admit I was in no position to pay off my debt.

Bluntly, I got sodomized without even the benefit of Vaseline, or even a courteous reach-around.

I'll hash out the numbers in the coming week.
Now I gotta nap for my 2nd job. Great. I'm 38 with 2 McJobs that barely pay the bills.
So surprised I finally went bankrupt - not!

I'll look up the student loan interest I paid by way of example this week.

I'll be um 46 when I finally outlive my bad credit.
All based on a decision I made at 19, at half my age, with the encouragement of high school counsellors and parent.
Who, of course, now blame me for 'choosing to not use my education'. Really. Word-for-word quotation.
Incredible.