Quebec tuition revisited. ACCESSIBILITY

D - that's the term everybody on both sides of the Quebec tuition issue bandy about.

Here's the other side.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/04/13/brendan-steven-quebec-students-must-pay-their-share/

(D -about Brendan. Brendan Steven is a third year political science & Canadian studies student at McGill University. He is a co-founder of McGill’s Moderate Political Action Committee (ModPAC), an organization mobilizing students opposed to the strike.)

The change will take Quebec from having the lowest tuition rate in the country to … still having the lowest tuition rate in the country.

Student activists have orchestrated a series of strike actions in opposition to the tuition increase. The name of the game has been hyperbole: accusations that Charest seeks to implement “American-style” privatized education, and claims that accessibility for low-income students will be ravaged by the changes.

Quebec’s artificially low tuition rate is a failed policy. It has done nothing to increase accessibility, the raison d’être of rock-bottom tuition, and has only left Quebec’s universities poorer than their national counterparts.

(D - I'm not sure what he means by "artificial" there - maybe below the other provinces?)

There is simply no observed correlation in Canada between lower tuition fees and higher rates of university participation. A study by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy found that the three provinces with the lowest tuition in the country (Quebec, Manitoba and Newfoundland) all suffered from the largest gaps of participation between low-income and high-income students. Nova Scotia, with the highest tuition rate in the country, also had the highest rate of university participation.

(D - this term proves to be a Red Herring - see my retort.)

This is not to say that higher tuition leads to higher accessibility. Certainly, the Frontier Centre’s researchers note that tuition can be so high it becomes a genuine barrier to access. Canada, however, is nowhere near that point, and Quebec certainly will be nowhere near it once these tuition increases are implemented.

(D - I show there is a chilling effect at work on student from poor families already, at the tuition rates of other provinces in Canada.)

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D - we don't want universities subject to to the funding whims of gov't, apparently.

D - coupla things. First of all, the present highest tuitions in Canada are Ontario, New Brunswich and then Nova Scotia, in that order.

D - but let's focus on his article's main argument - low tuition does not impede poor student participation.

What is "participation"? Well, in the most simplistic analysis, it is measured based on university enrollment and attendance, period. There are some serious problems with this.

At the grad level, the financial situation of the student continues to have an impact on accessibility.

http://careerchem.com/CAREER-INFO-ACADEMIC/Frank-Elgar.pdf

(D - ABM stands for All But Dissertation.)

Even the demographic profile of ABD students has changed dramatically in
recent years. As Smith (2000) describes, most ABDs are in their mid-30s or early-40s, most are
married or in a relationship with at least one child, 70% are employed in areas unrelated to their
discipline, and most live too far away from campus to meet regularly with professors or to utilise
campus services. They are burdened with multiple commitments, live a non-commutable distance
from campus, and poor. As Ziolkowski (1990) notes, in light of the social and economic plight of
ABD students, it should not be surprising that most report feeling isolated and “left behind.”

D - reaching a PhD degree pays dividends. Worth a million bucks!

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CHEQFjAH&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yorku.ca%2Foira%2Freports%2FGreenPaper%2F18%2520-%2520Trends%2520in%2520Higher%2520Education%2520-%2520Enrolment%2520-%2520AUCC.pdf&ei=HWOIT6HNGcT0gge-m4XcCQ&usg=AFQjCNHnPtDXfdzoGpZ_EQ65PNuP5tE1bA&sig2=SieLqT-DDnQnLeRaX0nUwQ

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/campus-reports/a-university-education-in-canada-is-a-bargain/article2211942/print/

Canada’s generous financial aid programs, such as the Canada Grant Program and student loans, also make education here a steal. “We have to remember that although we charge everyone tuition up front, a lot of that is given back right away in tax rebates,” says Usher, noting that tax credits range from 20% to 30% of tuition depending on the province.

D - spoken like a true middle class member. Tax credits are of no use for the truly poor below the first tax bracket.

D- between first year and graduation, 1 in 7 drop out. WHY?

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=4af0ba5c-1d32-4897-8ae3-cf8937cf001e

OTTAWA - One is seven young Canadians who pursue higher education drop out before they graduate, with most making the call by the time they've finished their first year, says a Statistics Canada study.

The federal agency reported Tuesday that 15 per cent of students who enrol in post-secondary education quit for a variety of reasons...

The study concluded that students who quit were heading in that direction from their first year.

In their first year post-secondary experience, leavers were already faltering in terms of meeting deadlines, academic performance and study behaviour, said Statistics Canada.

Danielle Shaienks, one of the study's authors, said that the non-completion rate is roughly the same as it was in 2002...

(D - oh so, the dropouts lacked worth ethic? Maybe - or maybe they were juggling a job on the side unsuccessfully, recognizing the risk of graduating with a big student loan.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/08/work

Consistent with the conventional wisdom, said Gary R. Pike, lead author of the study, working more than 20 hours a week has a negative impact on students' grades, whether the the employment is on campus or off. Students who work 20 hours or less, on campus and off, report roughly similar grades as do students who do not work at all.

D - let's look at those tuition level that Steven deems acceptable and benign...

http://www.cfs-fcee.ca/studentdebt/index.html

Impact of Tuition Fees and Student Debt
Among those who have never participated in post-secondary education, “financial issues” have been found by researchers to be the most commonly cited barrier. As demonstrated below, financial struggles lead to a diverse array of consequences.

Debt Aversion
Debt aversion is the personal calculation that the sacrifice of debt accumulation and repayment are not worth the return from post-secondary education. When examining the details of financial barriers to participation in Canada, Malatest and Associates found that debt aversion was strong among nonattendees, cited by one in four who said that financial issues were preventing their enrolment/

http://www.cfs-fcee.ca/studentdebt/index.html

Persistence and Mental Health
Apprehension about accumulating debt can also have a profound impact on the likelihood of completion. As many students work part- or full-time to reduce their borrowing, academic commitments can become more difficult to fulfil. Other students simply leave before completion at the first offer of decent employment as a way to stop accumulating debt.

Surveys of students in programs with deregulated tuition fees have demonstrated that student debt changes the career path of young graduates. Studies of medical students9 and law students10 found that students expect to seek higher paying jobs in fields or regions that are not necessarily their first choice. Student debt appears to be driving committed young doctors away from family practice and young lawyers away from the public service and/or pro bono work. These distorted career choices have an impact not only on individual professionals but also on access to health care and legal services for all Canadians.

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D - this first round of Quebec tuition hikes is just the tip of the iceberg. As part an ongoing trend, here is the result:

http://www.cba.org/cba/national/Students/Student01.aspx

Out of sight

In the past decade, reports Statistics Canada, undergraduate tuition fees have risen an astonishing 126.2%, more than six times the 20.6% increase in inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index.

Law, dentistry, and medicine continue to be the most expensive programs. In some provinces, tuition fees at professional schools have doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled in recent years. And the numbers keep rising.

This fall, first-year law students across Canada will pay tuition fees of anywhere from a low of $1,668 (for Quebec residents who go to one of the province's five law schools) to a high of $12,000 at the University of Toronto. Generally, fees are highest in Ontario and Nova Scotia, and lowest in Quebec and British Columbia.

Add to that the costs of books, ancillary fees, food and housing, and single students can expect to pay anywhere from $10,000 to more than $25,000 a year to study for a law degree. When you factor in the expenses of Bar Admission Courses, plus debts from previous degrees, it's no surprise that some law graduates can expect to enter today's profession with staggering debt loads approaching $100,000.

High tuition fees, says Dr. William Easton, create barriers to education, and thus threaten the supply of professionals required to serve the needs of the Canadian public.

Easton is chair of the National Professional Associations Coalition on Tuition (NPACT), an affiliation of representatives from numerous professional associations — including the CBA — concerned about tuition fee increases.

Opponents of fee hikes worry that the increased costs will deter people, especially those who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, from even considering the law as a career possibility. Students from rural areas, recent immigrants, those without savings or credit histories, and students with children are among those most vulnerable to the effects of high fees.

"The costs are so onerous that law school doesn't become part of someone's realm of possibility," says Ummni Kahn, a recent Osgoode Hall graduate who worked at Parkdale Community Legal Services as part of the school's intensive program in poverty law. She's now articling with the Ontario Human Rights Commission. "When I talked to clients at Parkdale about going into law, they'd say, no, that's out of my league."

"Sticker shock" and debt aversion are the two main barriers that keep potential law students out of higher-priced institutions...

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D - in conclusion, high tuition - at a level already found in much of the rest of Canada:
1) forces students to take on work for money that hurts marks,
2) encourages poor students to drop out before completing degrees,
3) steers poor students away from lucrative professional degrees.

Contrast this with Brendan Steven's claim that tuition rates on par other provinces such as Ontario don't impact on poor student university 'participation rates'.
You decide.

(Extrapolate present tuition trends to see what awaits GenZ - those still in lower levels of school. Grim stuff. Budget pressure from retiring Boomers will only amplify existing trends.)