Hufsa Tahir
Staff Writer
@excalweb
Since Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government announced March 8 that the tuition fee cap on post-secondary schools in Ontario would be extended another year, the announcement has been met with student uproar.
“That’s fucking nuts!” says Shauna Pellman, a first-year cognitive science student. “If they gave a reason, it would be good, but that doesn’t make it right.”
The cap would allow tuition costs to be raised by up to five per cent during the 2012-2013 school year. According to the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), this would be the seventh year in a row the increase has taken effect.
“The economic vulnerability of students makes it unfair,” says third-year biology student Joseph Monywiir.
Sandy Hudson, chairperson of CFS-Ontario, said in a press release that Glen Murray, minister of training, colleges, and universities, had promised to include students in the discussion of a new tuition fee framework.
“He promised to reduce tuition fees by 30 per cent, and he promised to make college and university education more affordable,” she stated. “Students are tired of having promises broken and simply cannot afford to pay hundreds of dollars more for their education next fall.”
Sean Madden, president of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA), pointed out that the government—while they did help students with the tuition grant program—are now negating the effects with the tuition cap.
“The government’s recent investment in tuition grants was a step forward in building an accessible and affordable post-secondary education system,” he said in a press release. “However, today’s announcement was a step back, as this investment is going to be quickly eroded if tuition fees continue to increase by five per cent each year.”
Sharan Kaur from the office of Glen Murray says that the government is doing its best to offer more financial assistance to students who need the aid.
She points out that there are more than 20 grants, bursaries, and scholarship programs available to Ontario post-secondary students.
However, according to the CFS, Ontario students already pay the highest tuition fees in Canada and collectively owe $9 billion in student debt.
“To pay for the Ontario Tuition Grant, many grants for low-income students were cut and the poorest students were excluded from eligibility,” said Hudson. She says the announcement of the tuition cap will only mean that “poor students will help subsidize more wealthy students’ education.”
“Dalton McGuinty will have a hard time being taken seriously as the self-proclaimed ‘education premier’ with this legacy of forcing students into record-high amounts of debt due to record-high fees,” she says.
