Momentum builds towards rise in tuition
Political pundits predict that university tuition, frozen at 1992 levels and now less than half the Canadian average, may soon be allowed to rise.
Premier Jean Charest, is making a tuition thaw part of the Liberals’ election platform; the Action démocratique du Québec agrees. However, the Parti Québécois would keep tuition at roughly $1,668 a year for an undergraduate degree.
Four research-intensive universities (McGill, Université de Montréal, Sherbrooke and Laval) held a news conference Feb. 7 to urge the government to provide more operating funds. They said there will be serious consequences if everyone, both the students and the taxpayers, doesn’t do his part.
In what may have been a sign of the times, former PQ premier Lucien Bouchard has warned Quebecers that they cannot live beyond their means much longer. His call for fiscal restraint has given rise to the “lucide” movement, so called because of the title of his October 2005 broadside, Pour un Québec lucide.
President Claude Lajeunesse called for higher tuition in his presentation to the Quebec parliamentary commission on education last month.
In an interview with The Journal and student media on Feb. 9, he said the average Canadian university relies on tuition for 20 per cent of its revenue, but in Quebec, tuition covers only 9.2 per cent of operating costs. This has led to a deficit for the Quebec institutions of $400 million a year.
President Lajeunesse said that Concordia has been able to avoid a deficit until just two years ago, but at a cost.
“Whenever I meet students at awards ceremonies, athletic or cultural events and other functions, they always raise the same three points with me: classes are too large, rooms are not kept clean and the libraries are not open enough hours, and are not equipped with enough computers.”
President Lajeunesse said that lifting the tuition freeze and bringing tuition to national averages would allow Concordia to hire more faculty, employ a larger maintenance staff and improve library resources.
Lajeunesse pointed to a recent report from the Montreal Economic Institute that demonstrated that although Quebec tuitions have remained frozen over the last decade (which actually works out to a decrease, since the frozen amount has not kept pace with inflation) it has not necessarily affected enrolment.
The percentage of 20- and 21-year-olds in Quebec enrolling in university was about 20 per cent in 2000, about average for Canada.
Meanwhile, Nova Scotia, with the highest tuition rates in the country, also had the highest level of enrolments, at well over 30 per cent.
“Tuition is not the driving factor in determining enrolment,” he concluded.
(For the full interview, go to news.concordia.ca.)