Tuition fee wars leave all parties disappointed

Any Canadian student with a modicum of activism in their veins has marched against tuition fee increases, holding a sign that reads ‘freeze tuition’. Last month, in a move that should have appeased the student masses, Alberta Premier Alison Redford announced a tuition fee freeze for the 2013-14 academic year. But responses to this move have been mixed at best.

Freezing tuition fees may be the buzzwords of student activism, but student tuition fee policy is embedded in a complex network of institutions, advocacy groups and powerful individuals influencing the funding of Canadian higher education.

Rising tuition fees and isolated activism

Canada is in its third decade of tuition fee wars.

Since 1991, undergraduates have seen their fees more than double as federal government austerity has trickled down to the provinces.

The past year has been particularly dramatic, with repeated clashes between students and the government in Quebec as the latter threatens to increase the relatively low tuition rates.

Too often the media paints these conflicts as solely student issues.

In a recent study, published in The Canadian Journal of Higher Education, higher education scholars from York University illustrate how policy decisions on student fees are often inconsistent and ad hoc, developing amid debates on who should bear the cost of education.

Through a series of interviews with stakeholders, the York University study finds that advocacy for policy change tends to isolate stakeholders around their specific cause. Universities and colleges focus on their own operating grants while students target issues that directly affect them, such as tuition fees.

As Alberta’s current dilemma reveals, these policy areas do not exist in isolation. When financial contributions to universities decrease, institutional operations are squeezed and students’ supplemental fees increase.

A tuition fee freeze may provide immediate financial relief for students, but does little to improve the quality of education.

Student aid

Another recurring tension that York University researchers identified surrounds funding financial aid.

The past 20 years have seen little cohesion of financial policies at either provincial or federal level. Each subsequent federal government seems to revise the grants and loans programme in its ambit with little buy-in from successors.

Again, stakeholders are starkly divided on what policies are best to ensure an increase in both access and affordability.

The study suggests that students and faculty advocate for student grants from the ideological perspective that higher education is a public good, levelling social inequity.

In contrast, industry stakeholders, university leaders and government tend to view higher education as a private good that increases personal wealth. The latter perspective leans towards higher tuition fees supported through loans and tax deductions that frequently target the family-oriented middle class.

Federal politics and policy networks

The complexity of funding Canadian higher education amid competing stakeholders and a shifting federal system is multi-layered.

Although the provinces are responsible for post-secondary education, their funding comes from federal transfers that have been steadily decreasing. It is estimated that transfers have decreased 50% in per-student costs since 1995.

As with the student aid policies, political pandering rather than systematic strategies seems to account for changes.

Particularly interesting are the federal-provincial politics when different political parties are in power. When conflict between parties is high, the federal government has little incentive to increase financial transfers that will increase the popularity of their rivals.

Canada’s tuition fee wars are not merely conflicts between students and government funding agencies. Rather, multiple stakeholders including faculty groups, university administrators, industry partners and both levels of government are lobbying for change and are often divergent in their aims.

This has made consensus difficult in policy decisions. But it has also led to a vibrant advocacy environment where most stakeholders are able to have their demands heard and make an appearance at the negotiation table.

It also means that politicians are called to account when lean offers, such as a temporary tuition fee freeze, are offered to mask wide-scale funding cuts.

* Grace Karram Stephenson is a higher and international education specialist with the Comparative, International and Development Education Centre in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto in Canada.