The Ontario Undergraduate Student Association is calling for a “time out” on tuition in Ontario.
The provincial lobbying group represents the interests of 14,000 full and part-time undergraduate students at Western, Queen’s, Waterloo, Brock, Trent, McMaster, and Laurier. They maintain the vision of giving students “accessible, affordable, accountable, and high quality post-secondary education.”
Their latest campaign, Time Out, accompanied by the hashtag #timeoutON, is demanding a tuition freeze from the Ontario government. They hope to have the provincial government subsidize the traditional increase in tuition, in which students across Ontario have been seeing on a year-to-year basis.
“This is about students not graduating with a mountain of debt,” says Antonio Sergi, vice president of external affairs for Brock University’s student union.
The purpose of the campaign is to ask for a fully funded freeze – a “time out” for these increases, he adds.
“As the cost of education goes up, all the costs associated with being a student continue to rise. We would want to see those marginal increases subsidized by the government, through increased provincial funding, and not being downloaded off to students.”
The York Federation of Students is not a member of OUSA. However, he suggests students maintain a strong relationship with their student government.
“Encourage them to take part,” Sergi adds. “Your student representatives have been elected to do this kind of work, and it’s our job to represent the biggest challenges facing students. We are always going to want increased social programs, bursaries, and grants, but there’s a systemic flaw.”
“Every year you elect these people to represent your interests,” he says. “And a lot of it is about who is planning your orientation week, ‘what are you going to to do for my club,’ and a lot of times students get wrapped up in that.”
Canadian undergraduates saw a 3.3 per cent increase on average in their tuition in the 2014 and 2015 academic year, according to Statistics Canada.
StatsCan notes a similar increase was experienced in the 2013 and 2014 academic year.
On average, Ontario undergrads paid just under $6,000 a year in 2014, where in 2013, tuition averaged around $5,767. Tuition continues to rise across the country, all except for Newfoundland and Labrador, where tuition has been frozen since 2003.
On average, Ontario students pay the most in Canada.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a wide range of statistics regarding tuition in Ontario, pulling up statistics which show in 1976, undergraduates paid just $2,351 for yearly tuition, and in 1990, tuition was a measly $2,607 per year on average.
The CCPA points out how youth unemployment was 15.4 per cent in 2011, a sharp increase since 1990, where youth unemployment rates levelled under 10 per cent. The CCPA claims students in today’s economic landscape could expect close to $37,000 of debt.
“All qualified students, regardless of their financial situation, can attend university because of the availability of scholarships, bursaries, and student aid provided by the Ontario government and universities,” says Joanne Rider, York media.
Rider points to a long list of stats regarding Ontario’s tuition framework, specifically on a three per cent capped increase per year. She notes, 46 per cent of a university’s operating costs come from tuition, while Ontario government operating grants accounts for the main source of revenue.
Michael Burton, Editor-in-Chief
Featured image courtesy of Michael Zusev, Photo Editor
