With each year that passes under Liberal rule, another several layers of bricks are added to the financial wall separating working class youth from British Columbia’s colleges and universities.
As part of a recently released three year fiscal plan, the B.C. government announced the stunning projection that by 2011 it will receive more revenue from tuition fees ($1.11 billion) than from corporate income taxes ($1.04 billion).
This report confirms the government’s plan to further deepen a trend that has seen colleges and universities become increasingly inaccessible to working class students. When Gordon Campbell’s Liberals were first elected in 2002, they inherited a province with the second lowest average tuition fee in the country, but within the first three years of taking power, tuition fees had more than doubled. According to figures released this past spring, the average undergraduate student in B.C. now pays $5,040 tuition per year, which is 10% more than the national average; the average postgraduate student pays $6,580 per year, 14% more than the national average.
In addition to tuition hikes, the province’s grant program has been slashed, forcing students to obtain loans to repay the cost of the entirety of their schooling, instead of being able to rely on some government assistance as they were in the past. As of fall 2008, the percentage of B.C. student aid issued in the form of non-repayable grants had fallen to only 12% of total student aid, which is now the lowest level in the country. In contrast, Manitoba provides 48% of student aid in the form of non-repayable grants.
These examples of dramatic fee increases are the result of a systemic underfunding of education. Six out of the last eight provincial budgets have included cuts to post-secondary funding when measured on a per-student basis. When corrected for inflation, per-student funding has fallen by 14% over the first eight years of Liberal rule. The combination of corporate tax cuts, tuition hikes, and the cancellation of grants has meant dropping responsibility for the cost of education onto the backs of students.
It’s no surprise that the average level of debt among B.C.’s graduating students has dramatically risen, and now sits at $27,000, the highest of any province outside of the Maritimes. To make matters worse, interest rates for loan payments are set to either a floating rate of prime plus 2.5% or a fixed rate of prime plus 5%. For most students, this means paying interest rates of 8.5% or higher. No business would agree to pay such an outrageous interest rate on a bank loan, but students aren’t given any choice in the matter.
This level of debt is potentially crippling for any student, but plans are underway to remove some of the progressive programs that have been aimed at easing the burden placed on certain at-risk sections of the student population. On 22nd July, an internal government memo was leaked to the media. This memo included plans to eliminate a wide range of programs including the Permanent Disability Benefits Program, the Debt Reduction in Repayment Program, Loan Reduction for Residential Care Aide and Home Support Workers Programs, and the Health Care Bursary. It also included plans to place the Early Childhood Educator Loan Assistance Program under review, and to delay the introduction of a new Repayment Assistance Program.
The figures referred to above become all the more glaring when taken in the context of a country in which access to post-secondary education has fallen dramatically over the past few decades. Canada is one of the world’s few wealthy countries lacking free post-secondary education. In previous generations the funding of grant programs and other government assistance filled some of the gap, allowing working-class students limited access to post-secondary education, but these programs have largely been eliminated. In a recent OECD report, Canadians aged between 55 and 64 place fourth in likelihood to have obtained a postsecondary degree. However, within the 25 to 34 age group, Canada placed twelfth.
In the recent BC provincial election, the NDP’s platform called for some modest changes reversing some of the cuts. This platform included a promise to reinstate the grant program, as well as to cut interest rates in half. These are steps in the right direction, and would have attracted attention, as well as votes. However, as we have discussed in previous articles, the BCNDP’s election campaign was afraid to publicise any of their platform’s promises. We heard nothing about these steps during the election campaign. Working class students were left with the impression that their party wasn’t listening to any their concerns.
Along with those steps, the NDP’s program also promised a four-year tuition freeze. For the next election, the promise of a tuition freeze would be unacceptable, as it would condone more than a decade of Liberal attacks on students. The BCNDP must adopt, and be unafraid to publicise, a program of reversing all the attacks and cuts made by the Liberals, eliminating student debt, while instituting living grants and free education for everybody. Such a program would draw youth into the party by the thousands and give young workers a concrete alternative that connects with the reality of day-to-day life.
