In the last two decades, tuition fees have become one of the largest expenses for university and college students. Each year both federal and provincial governments continue to cut funding and further burden students with the cost of post-secondary education forcing them to take on high levels of debt. This decrease in funding has also impacted the quality of post-secondary education, evident through the increasing number of large class sizes and dilapidating infrastructure within institutions across the country. In the fight for accessible high quality post-secondary education in Canada it is essential to note what other countries are doing.
THE INTERNATIONAL EVIDENCE
New Zealand
In 1992, New Zealand stopped regulating tuition fees and implemented income-contingent repayment for student loans. By 1999, tuition fees had nearly tripled. Today, total student debt is over $10 billion NZD (approximately $8.1 billion CAD).
The New Zealand Educational Institute has calculated that it takes women in New Zealand an average of 28 years to pay for three years of tertiary study, twice as long as it takes men. It also estimates that a teacher with a $30,000 student loan would take 16 years to repay it, and would have to pay over $23,538 in interest. The Institute also notes that a non-supervisory Early Childhood Teacher with the same debt ($30,000) will likely never pay off her loan, but she will pay $69,000 in interest over 40 years.
United States of America
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, between 1988 and 1998, cuts in state funding were the primary factor in tuition fee increases at public four-year institutions. Moreover, despite record tuition fee increases since the 1999-2000 year, the U.S. post-secondary education system is still suffering a quality crisis. Even in the face of a 14 percent tuition-fee hike in 2003—the highest tuition fee increase in more than a decade—U.S. public institutions have reported program cuts, faculty reductions, and staff layoffs. Tuition fees at U.S. public institutions have now reached approximately 50 percent of the annual income of middle-class families.
United Kingdom
Under the auspices of increasing revenue and quality at British universities, the government imposed post-secondary tuition fees for the first time in British history in 1998. Yet, in 2001, the Guardian newspaper released a study demonstrating that the operating budgets of universities did not increase after tuition fees were imposed. This occurred because once the costs were downloaded onto students and their families, the government proceeded to cut post-secondary education funding. In fact, public funding for universities fell each consecutive year after tuition fees were introduced. Total per student funding, both public funding from the government and tuition fees, was lower in 2002-2003 than in 1996-1997, the year before tuition fees were introduced. After only five short years cumulative student loan debt in Britain rose to £33.4 billion with no improvement in quality or access. In 2011, the governing Labour Party announced that they are looking to triple tuition fees over the next few years.
Germany
Over the last decade, seven of Germany’s 16 federal states introduced tuition fees. This decision caused students and unions to mobilise across the country and form coalitions to oppose tuition fees. After these coalitions succeeded in making the issue of tuition fees an electoral issue, multiple political parties began speaking out against tuition fees as part of their election campaigns. By 2012, all but two states, Lower Saxony and Bavaria, later reversed their decisions to implement tuition fees.
In 2013 Lower Saxony elected a new centre-left government, which pledged to eliminate tuition fees within the state. In Bavaria, a referendum was held where the majority of voters voted in favor of eliminating tuition fees.
CONCLUSION
Post-secondary education is necessity for individuals and society at large. An educated population is correlated with a reduced crime rate, decreased health care expenditures and greater civic engagement. A university or college education is virtually a pre- requisite for meaningful participation in today’s economy. By increasing the financial barriers to post-secondary education, policy-makers are taking great risks with the future prosperity of Canadians.
The proponents of higher tuition fees in the countries described above have campaigned on the notion that the overall level of funding resulting from higher tuition fees will lead to better quality education. In the face of austerity and a worldwide economic recession Germany has instead opted to move towards eliminating fees and ensure equal opportunity for all students. The lesson from the UK, U.S. and New Zealand has been that higher tuition fees are consistently offset by cuts in public funding, reduced access to higher education, massive student debt burdens, and no quality improvements. There is a lesson to be learned from these experiences for Canadian policy-makers.