Tatiana Prisiajny, Features Editor
Featured illustration by Christopher Lai, Comics and Graphics Editor
If you’ve been following the news recently, you may have noticed the buzz phrase “free tuition” making its debut across headlines.
Before you start comparing Canada to Scandinavia, now would be a good time to remind you that a grant system does not equal to free education.
In the new budget, the provincial government stated that it would work to make education more affordable for students.
The Ontario Student Grant worth an average of $6,000 will be provided to students whose families make under $50,000 per year. Students whose families have an annual income of less than $83,000 will receive more in non-repayable grants as well.
However, Statistics Canada states that the average undergraduate tuition in Ontario is currently $7,868, with the average being a liberal arts degree.
This leaves out professional degrees such as those in the high demand STEM fields, which tend to have higher tuition fees. Students who want to pursue such degrees will have to rely on separate assistance plans with lengthy applications to cover the extra tuition.
While the effort by the government is appreciated, if the goal is to prepare people for the future workforce where seven out of 10 new jobs in Canada will require specialized skills, why are we not incentivizing all students with grants rather than only basing grants off of the cost of “average tuition fees,” which happen to be abundant in today’s overflowing pool of liberal arts degrees.
One can’t help but wonder if the goal here is solely to churn out graduates or to incentivize students to pursue degrees that would otherwise be out of reach due to being too costly, such as those in STEM fields.
With current youth unemployment rates at 15.3 per cent as of 2015, you’d think that the grant would be higher to provide an incentive for students to pursue such degrees, which would likely prepare them for gainful employment in fields that are in high demand.
To bridge the gap, The Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities stated that they will continue to work toward changing the structure of student loans when it comes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program.
Currently, students can only repay a maximum of $7,400 in loans for a two-term academic year and the government wants to raise the debt threshold to $10,000 for higher-oncome families, with no mention of adjusting debt repayment plans or implementing interest-free loans for students from low-income families.
Not only does the cost of tuition exceed the grants, but by 2017 when students will be eligible for the grant, tuition will likely increase due to inflation as the current three per cent cap on increases to undergraduate tuition expires that same year.
On top of that, in order for students to have access to the grants, they will need to contribute $3,000 annually. Previously, a student’s contribution was determined by annual earnings whereas now it is at a fixed rate. In other words, students will be essentially buying access to grants for a fee of $3,000.
As if students don’t have enough of other rising costs to cover, including the expenses that come with being a student such as books, food, transportation, and living fees.
The student grant gives the impression that there won’t be any cost to low-income families, dismissing these essential costs entirely.
The government needs to do more to ensure that all students have access to affordable education, not just attempt to solve the problem by providing higher debt thresholds that disadvantaged students will fall victim to.
This is a step in the right direction, but it is far from free tuition and if education is the cornerstone to improving our country, then we have many miles to go.
