After a busy fall term, OUSA’s member schools and the Home Office are preparing to shut down for a short time and take a much needed holiday break. We look forward to continuing to work with students, the provincial government and other stakeholders to advocate for a more accessible, affordable, and higher quality post-secondary education in 2012.
Wishing you all a refreshing and relaxing break,
Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!
Happy Holidays from OUSA
As students bury themselves in their studies as they prepare for final exams, many are asking a golden question; where should I study? The library is the obvious answer so many will pack up their bags and trudge through the snow to get to campus to try and capture the elusive table or desk space available at the campus libraries. But when they get there, they are faced with a confusing revelation.
There’s no space.
So they try their student centre; no luck there either and besides, it’d be hard to focus with the hustle and bustle of the last two weeks of school for the year. What about a small lecture hall? Potentially, but those pull-up desk top things don’t provide much room to spread your stuff out and also, many of them are already occupied by other groups of students running impromptu tutorial sessions. What about the student lounge space? Those have quiet hours, right? Yeah but, like the library, those are full. So once again, they are faced with a confusing revelation.
There’s no space.
This is not an unfamiliar scenario at the University of Waterloo or any other university in Ontario. Over the past 5 years, our campuses have seen astronomical growth. In the past academic year alone, Waterloo saw acceptance levels above target within each of their six faculties. And, to the credit of government and institutions, with this student population growth comes infrastructure growth as well. Currently there are several new buildings being constructed on my campus: Environment 3, the Nanotechnology Centre, Math 2 and Engineering 6. Logically, this makes sense; when you have more students, you need more space. But the type of space that is being created on my campus isn’t the type of space the students need. These buildings hold very little new lecture or student space, instead creating new labs and office rooms for graduate students and professors. While I can appreciate that this space is needed too, I question where our new students are supposed to go. Our libraries and student lounge spaces are at critical capacity and everyday, students are faced with that confusing revelation.
There’s no space.
So, the new space that is available for undergraduate students is typically paid for through increasing compulsory ancillary fees. At Queen’s University, for example, undergraduate students are paying an ancillary fee of over $140 per year to fund their new athletics and student life complex. And here at Waterloo, students are still paying off additions to our Student Life Centre from a decade ago.
Instead of asking Ontario’s students – who are already paying the highest tuition in Canada – to pay for these critical pieces of university infrastructure, the government should adopt the recommendation contained in the final report of the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities/Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure Long-Term Capital Planning Project, compiled by the Courtyard Group in 2009, which states, “funding should be extended to traditional ‘ancillary’ projects which demonstrate significant contribution to student development.”
If we are working towards a 70% attainment level of PSE in this province, we need to start creating the space for these students. Creating a healthy, effective learning environment is essential to the success of our students and this means quality student space on our campuses. We look forward to seeing this and other infrastructure challenges addressed in the government’s forthcoming 10-year infrastructure plan for the province.
- Nick Soave
Vice President Education, Federation of Students
University of Waterloo
For years now, students, universities and the provincial government have publicly stated their support for easing restrictions on the transfer of credits between colleges and universities or simply between two universities. Time, effort and resources from both the public and students are being wasted under the current system, and significant improvements must be made to remove transfer barriers and to provide students with the transparent information they need to plan for their future. To move this process forward, steering committees have been created, sub-committees have met, and money has been pledged to cover expected costs to the institutions. Yet the movement toward a more fair and seamless credit transfer system seems stalled, especially on the university-to-university front.
The government deserves recognition for driving forward the credit transfer agenda and for reaffirming its commitment to credit transfer through the 2010 Ontario Budget. OUSA has always been closely involved in planning and consultation on this issue and can point to progress in moving toward a multilateral solution, at least on college-to-university transfer. Though progress is slow, I remain optimistic about current efforts to expand the number of purpose-built pathways from college to university, to provide students with clear information and support throughout the transfer process, and to create a coordinating body that would encourage and monitor credit transfer. However, while the main area of concern to government has been college-to-university credit transfer, the university-to-university transfer issue has been shuffled to the back, and responsibility for progress has been left largely to the universities themselves.
In order to provide student input into the university-to-university transfer discussions, OUSA submitted a comprehensive list of recommendations to the Council of Ontario Universities (COU) one year ago this month. While considerable progress has been made in defining the problem, unfortunately, one year later, we’re still waiting for concrete results.
The COU should be commended for the work currently underway on devising key indicators for credit transfer, considering the creation of common courses among a group of willing institutions, and developing a framework for government funding. Students recognize that the challenges to improving credit transfer without undervaluing degrees are complex and cannot be solved with simplistic solutions. However, when it comes to OUSA’s main recommendations, as detailed in an earlier post, little to no progress has been made. Many of these recommendations do not require new resources, but are simply administrative changes.
Furthermore, OUSA is concerned by the notion that the government should simply give our universities more money and let them handle credit transfer issues on their own, when the universities have little motivation to do so. Rather, the government has a significant leadership role to play in making credit transfer a reality, and we urge the government to more fully embrace this role.
If we are to have something to celebrate by December 2011, students will need to see one of two things: Either our universities need to get serious about all forms of credit transfer by replacing talk with action, or the government needs to step in and strongly incentivize or dictate the concrete changes that are required. Personally, I don’t think students have a preference. They just want to get it done.
-Joe Finkle
Vice-President Education, McMaster Students Union
Vice-President Administration, OUSA
For those of you who missed it, there was a great ARTICLE published last week in University Affairs by Pierre Zundel, president of the University of Sudbury, and Patrick Deane, president of McMaster University. Entitled, “It’s time to transform undergraduate education,” the article calls for “a radical re-conceptualizing of the teaching and learning process” by focusing not on teaching but on learning. Volumes of literature on teaching and learning support this point, and yet many of our universities and faculty still rely on outdated paradigms and practices inherited from their predecessors.
I was particularly impressed by the author’s summary of the barriers to change. Of course, scarce resources, regulatory policy frameworks, and a government funding formula that makes no effort to fund teaching innovation are there. But here’s what tops the list:
“The first and greatest impediment to change, however – and the one over which we have the most control – is our own habit of intellectual self-limitation: of conceiving the future always in terms of the past, and the possible in terms of the proven.”
This point, that we need to break free from the mould that has stifled innovation in teaching and learning for generation, is one that OUSA has long advanced, though less eloquently. It also echoes one made recently by President Deane in the latest ISSUE of OUSA’s Educated Solutions magazine, though in this article he discusses the need to overcome students’ intellectual self-limitation:
“Half a century ago Thomas Kuhn, the American philosopher of science, noted that for the most part we only ever “discover” what our existing intellectual paradigms will permit us to discover, that there is in that sense rarely anything absolutely new. For that reason we need to test paradigms continually, and this is no less true of pedagogy than of physics. While I celebrate and support students’ engagement with the quality of teaching, I encourage them to go much further: to work with their professors and other university leaders to reconsider the goals and processes of undergraduate learning. In such a dialogue I would find the most profound confirmation of student success.”
We all have a role to play in transforming undergraduate education, and it starts with breaking free from the past and embracing the possibilities of a new future. Oh, and please read the fantastic, insightful and life-changing articles in latest issue of Educated Solutions if you haven’t yet.
-Alvin Tedjo
Director of Communications
Last week the McMaster Students Union, together with the Mohawk Student Association and the Redeemer University Student Senate, held the second meeting this year of the Hamilton Post-Secondary Advisory Group (HPSAG). This group consists of the three major post secondary institutions in Hamilton and meets three times a year with Ted McMeekin, MPP for Ancaster-Dundas-Flambrough-Westdale and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, and Sophia Aggelonitis, MPP for Hamilton Mountain and Minister of Revenue. These meetings are unique in the province and provide a tremendous opportunity for us to address our concerns with our local representatives.
This meeting also featured a special guest. The Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, John Milloy was in attendance to listen to our issues and speak directly with student leaders. The MSU, thoroughly prepared as always, brought up the concerns surrounding shifting educational tax credits to upfront grants for students, quality of education and teacher training and deferred maintenance at our institution. The minister was particularly receptive to the issue of deferred maintenance, as we explained that most universities in Ontario are putting off hundreds of millions of dollars in much needed repairs to classroom and facilities in order to balance their budgets.
The minister was very open to the ideas brought forth by the student leaders from each school, and having a public university, a college and a private university all around the table, the perspectives varied, but most of the issues remained consistent. The MSU is now working on follow up from the meeting. Coming only one day after the end of the OUSA Student Advocacy Conference in Toronto, last week was tremendous for students, and we hope to see the fruits of our labour fairly soon. The next HPSAG will be hosted by McMaster in the spring.
-Joe Finkle
MSU VP Education
OUSA VP Administration
Last year, the provincial government provided $330 million worth of post-secondary education tax credits, making it the single largest expenditure on non-repayable student financial assistance. Indeed, since 2000, Ontario has spent well over a billion dollars on these credits. Collectively, Canadian governments now spend almost 40 per cent of funds allocated to student financial aid through education-related tax credits.
From a tax policy perspective, the argument for these credits is that we should not tax things we want people to consume, such as post-secondary education. While this is true in principle, the facts point to a better, more pragmatic solution to increasing participation in higher education. Upper-income families, who benefit most from tax credits, are sending their children to college and university in record numbers, while low-income students, who often pay little to no tax, are being shut out. In 2007, the university participation rate of youth aged 18 to 24 from families in the highest income quartile was 47%, more than double the participation rate of the low-income (20%) and low-middle (18%) income quartiles. If we want to provide incentives to pursue a higher education in Ontario, we should start by looking at the $6,300 in tuition fees now charged to the average undergraduate student. When faced with that price tag, a tax break on the back-end is the last thing a low-income family is considering.
While there is a demonstrated financial benefit for students and their families from tax-credits, there is broad consensus that these programs are an extremely ineffective way to distribute student assistance. First, as has already been stated, tax-credits are not targeted towards the students who need them the most. According to the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, the average tax credit claimed per young person in the top income quartile is twice that of the average tax credit available per student in the bottom quartile. With the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario reporting that the participation gap between rich and poor has increased every year between 2003 and 2007 (when the latest data is available), more needs to be done to target financial assistance to those who need it most.
A second and equally important issue regarding tax-credits is the time at which they are given out. The most sensible time to provide financial assistance to students is during the period of the school year when they accrue the majority of their costs – the start of the first semester. Unfortunately, in the case of the tax-credits, their connection to the tax cycle means that students are not able to use the credits when they most need them.
Here’s the good news: the Liberal government’s 2007 election platform recognized that these funds could be spent more wisely and promised to reallocate money spent on tax credits to up-front grants. Students have welcomed this promise and are waiting to see it become reality. Last week, at OUSA’s Student Advocacy Conference, student leaders from across Ontario met with over two-thirds of Ontario’s MPPs to discuss this and other issues of importance to undergraduate students.
In response to student inquiries about the status of this campaign promise, three barriers have been consistently cited:
I’ll attempt to address these one by one.
1. The Ministry of Finance has repeatedly suggested that fulfilling this campaign promise would come at a large up-front cost. The proposed implementation plan is simply to switch immediately from providing tax credits to providing an equal value to all students or families in the form of an up-front grant. This would indeed have fiscal implications because the current cost to government of providing tax credits is spread out over a number of years, given students can carry them forward for years after graduation. To overcome this perceived barrier, students suggest a different implementation mechanism. The government should immediately stop providing tax credits for new students and, as previous credits work their way through the tax system over a number of years, money would become available to reallocate directly to targeted, up-front grants. Students acknowledge this plan would not provide each student with the same value of tax credit that they are currently collecting, but students believe that financial assistance dollars should be spent to improve access to higher education and therefore think a more equitable distribution is a better use of these funds. This plan would result in no up-front cost to the government, would still fulfill the platform commitment, would have the greatest impact on accessibility, and is the preferred distribution method for students.
2. In addition to the cost of providing the funding upfront, the government has suggested that creating a new granting mechanism also presents administrative barriers. Again, students have responded that the funds should not be provided through a new grant, but instead should be targeted to those with the highest need through the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). This would do significantly more to increase access to post-secondary education and would eliminate administrative barriers and any cost associated with creating a new grant system. If the government insists that this money should be available universally, and not just for those eligible for OSAP, then it would still be more useful to use the money spent on tax credits to reduce up-front tuition costs, rather than create a new grant. This could be implemented through changes to the tuition framework and a reallocation of tax credit spending to our post-secondary institutions over a period of time.
3. When asked about their commitment to eliminate these tax credits, many government MPPs argued that this assistance is the only thing offered to assist middle-income families whose children do not qualify for OSAP. Putting aside the fact that the top income quartile – not middle-income families – receives the most benefit from these credits, students again have a proposed solution: use the $330 million used to provide these tax credits to expand OSAP eligibility to middle-class families. Students have long pointed to the inadequacies of the OSAP need assessment formula, especially the unreasonable parental contribution expectations. An investment of this magnitude (a full four times larger than the significant package of changes introduced in the last budget) could revolutionize OSAP and extend eligibility to all middle-income families across the Province. It could also significantly reduce the portion of OSAP that is repayable, lowering student debt and reducing the debt aversion that currently acts as a barrier for many students.
The Premier, with the full support of students, recently set an ambitious 70% post-secondary attainment target. Getting there will require bringing low-income students into the system, and that in turn will require increasing the accessibility of higher education. Reallocating tax credits to up-front grants is simply good policy, as the government recognized just three years ago. Furthermore, the government continues to point to Ontario’s record deficit as a reason why further investments in financial assistance may not be forthcoming. In recognition of this reality, students have asked repeatedly for the implementation of our cost-neutral proposal on tax credits. We await a response from government on how this promise to students will be fulfilled.
-Alexi White
Executive Director
November was an exciting month for OUSA, beginning with our Fall General Assembly in St. Catharines hosted by the Brock University Students’ Union. After months of research and analysis, the hard work of our Steering Committee and Home Office Staff culminated in a weekend of debate and discussion with student representation from all of our member schools. At the end of the three days, we emerged with three approved policies including a revised plan on student financial assistance, an updated accessibility and early outreach strategy, and a whole set of recommendations on international students studying in Ontario. OUSA’s General Assemblies’ always seek to provide the necessary forum for student engagement and dialogue; and I am exceedingly proud of the leadership that our students have shown in setting the direction for OUSA’s advocacy on these priorities.
Only a few weeks later, we held our annual Student Advocacy Conference in Toronto at Queen’s Park. For three days, our student leaders had over 70 meetings with Members of Provincial Parliament, cabinet ministers, political staff and members of the public service, with the purpose of spreading OUSA’s message on the importance of investing in post-secondary education (PSE) in Ontario. This conference provides the distinct opportunity for student representatives to meet with the provincial decision makers and present the concerns and challenges currently facing Ontario students. Our student delegates spent their time discussing the reallocation of Educational Tax Credit funding into other forms of needs-based financial assistance including the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). Students also stressed the necessity of additional enrolment space funding to accommodate the growth that Ontario’s system will experience over the next five years. Further, students presented strategies to improve teaching quality within our classrooms and recommendations on how the provincial government can offer a more holistic and comprehensive access strategy for groups currently underrepresented in our universities and colleges.
This week has ultimately proved to be successful in broadening the awareness and importance of investment in higher education. I want to thank all of those who met with OUSA over the past week for your time and continued support – the students of Ontario rely on your voices and decisions to enhance the accessibility, affordability, accountability and quality of PSE in the province.
Finally, I want to thank all of the student delegates from our seven member schools for your dedication at these conferences over the past month. Your efforts to advance the issues and advocacy for students across Ontario have made a difference.
-Meaghan Coker
On Monday, Alexi and I attended the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario’s (HEQCO) event with former BMO chief economist Tim O’Neill. He recently authored a review of Nova Scotia’s university system that has created considerable debate in the province. The report is wide-ranging and touches on institutional restructuring, research, funding, and accountability, but amongst the most controversial suggestions is the deregulation of university tuition fees, accompanied by improvements to the student financial assistance program. HEQCO invited him here to share his findings with stakeholders in the Ontario post-secondary education sector.
Before I share my comments on the event, I want you to imagine the following scenario:
A provincial government in Canada is facing significant budget deficits with no easy way out. It looks to its largest expenditure – health care – and tasks a well-respected economist to review its health care system and propose recommendations for improvement. The economist undertakes the review and hears from hospital CEOs across the province that hospitals are underfunded and need more revenue to meet demand and offer quality care. The economist also notes that healthy residents in the province are significantly subsidizing the care for unhealthy people. Additionally, the economist suggests that those who use the health care system receive significant personal and economic gain from it.
The economist therefore concludes that to meet the revenue demands of the hospitals that a user fee should be implemented. It is noted that there is a social good to having a healthy populace, so that public funding should not be entirely eliminated. However, the cost that should be borne by the public for that good is unknown, so the user fee should simply be deregulated to let the hospitals and market demands determine the cost. The report also importantly notes that many low-income people will not be able to pay the user fees, and so suggests that the government provide loans for health care costs and cap the amount of debt that can be incurred.
Residents respond that these fees would compromise accessibility and equity of health care in the province. The economist responds that low-income people already have poorer health outcomes than high-income people, and that the economist hasn’t found any evidence from other jurisdictions that increases in user fees, coupled with the availability of government loans, would make this unequal situation any worse.
Other residents suggest that making this change disproportionally hurts those that are unhealthy. The economist responds that just because healthy people have subsidized unhealthy people in the past doesn’t mean it should continue. Further, it is fairer to directly charge those that use the service than to use the income tax system which draws more from all higher-income earners, regardless of how much they use the health care system.
…
I am obviously being sensational in my analogy to the O’Neill report. Higher education is not health care. The difference between someone who attended post-secondary education and someone who did not is not the same than someone who is dead or alive. There are also several pathways of higher education with different average economic outcomes. But as I was sitting in the Tim O’Neill event, I couldn’t help but think of the public reaction that would ensue if his proposal to deregulate user fees for university was adopted for health care.
I have many thoughts on the different recommendations contained in O’Neill report, but I will try to limit myself to a few salient points. It is widely recognized, as Tim O’Neill noted on Monday, that there is a public benefit to higher education. Success in the new economy is increasingly dictated by the knowledge and innovation of our citizens. Raising the educational attainment of the population drives growth in the economy, increases the tax base, lowers crime, improves health, and reduces poverty. So if one recognizes that there is a public benefit and agrees that public dollars should be invested in its pursuit, the public investment must be protected.
Granted, significant private benefits exist as well. One could argue that if these benefits really do accrue, then the student will contribute significantly more to the tax base – and thus to the post-secondary education system – through the progressive income tax system later in life. Indeed, the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation has found that the 22% of Canadians with a university degree contribute over 41% of taxes. Others would argue that a cost sharing between government and students recognizes that not all of the benefit accrues to the public and it also likely incents timely completion. This is why the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance has long advocated for a return to a 2 to 1 cost sharing model, in which two dollars of government funding are provided for every dollar of student tuition. As the government here in Ontario develops its new five-year funding plan for post-secondary education, we urge the province to keep this balance in mind, given student contributions are now surpassing government funding at many institutions.
An additional point of concern for Nova Scotia is the proposed model of higher tuition and greater student assistance. While it does not directly state it this way, the report could be construed by some to be advocating that this model will improve accessibility. The suggestion from many is that higher tuition, with a portion of tuition increases being directed to aid for low-income students, is the solution to access concerns. This is essentially the model we utilize here in Ontario with OSAP and the tuition set-aside. Unfortunately, here in Ontario, the participation gap between high-income and low-income students increased every year from 2003 to 2007, which is the most recently available data from HEQCO.
To say that these participation gaps are due solely to increasing tuition would be unfounded. Research has shown that financial factors, such as debt aversion, sticker shock and a lack of understanding on the rate of return of higher education are significant barriers to access. But, it almost goes without saying that research has also shown that parental attitudes, academic abilities, motivation, geographic distance, lack of information, and cultural barriers are equally, if not, more important considerations in decisions to pursue higher education. Obviously, solving accessibility concerns is going to require more dedication and leadership from institutions and government than the simplistic answer of improving financial aid programs while tuition rises. Further, the elimination of tuition would not eliminate financial barriers or the need for financial aid, considering tuition makes up only one-third of the cost of attending university away from home.
Beyond accessibility, government must also monitor the affordability of higher education. As tuition has now risen beyond the sum that a student can realistically save over the summer, those students that do not receive assistance from their parents or through OSAP are increasingly having to turn to private loans to finance their education. We also need to develop better solutions on how to accommodate those students who are adverse to loans and debt, and are therefore self-selecting out of post-secondary education.
One further point is the claim was also made at the event that all international jurisdictions have accessibility concerns, regardless of tuition fees. People also tend to point to Newfoundland or Quebec where tuition reductions or freezes have not shifted participation rates considerably as reasoning for why tuition increases are acceptable. While it is true that there has been no strong demonstrated relationship internationally between overall participation and tuition fees, there are several European countries that have more equitable participation than Canada. For example, Finland which charges no tuition has much more equal post-secondary participation rates based on socio-economic status and parental education than here in Canada. But to use isolated examples and assume tuition fees are the sole contributing factor is not fair nor how one should create public policy. A more fulsome international analysis of the relationship between costs and access from OUSA can be found HERE.
Finally, I am now more eager for January when we will release our strategy for the Ontario government to improve accessibility of post-secondary education with our sector stakeholders. The strategy takes into account the available research, results from our focus groups with underrepresented students, and our consultations with stakeholders and community organizations. It touches on all of the barriers to accessing higher education, including that of tuition fees and strengthening financial assistance.
Ontario continues to lead Canada and most of the world in attainment for post-secondary education. Maintaining this competitive advantage and creating a more equitable society will require drawing more underrepresented students to our institutions. The future of our province depends on it.
-Sam Andrey
Student leaders representing over 140,000 undergraduate students from across Ontario descended upon Queen’s Park where they met with over 70 MPPs and 20 Ministers last week to discuss the future of post-secondary education in Ontario. The meetings were arranged as part of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance’s annual student advocacy conference. Over three days of advocacy on behalf of Ontario’s undergraduate students, our student leaders discussed and debated issues of financial aid, funding, tuition, access and quality with MPPs from all three major parties.
With Ontario facing difficult budget constraints, OUSA’s recommendations focused on targeted investments that will have a large impact on the quality of education, students’ access to it, and students’ ability to pay for their education, without a tremendous hit to the government’s budget. Many Members were eager to back OUSA’s recommendations, commenting on the pragmatic and thoughtful nature of our proposed solutions.
“This was a very successful advocacy conference, having met with more ministers, MPPs, civil servants and stakeholders than ever before,” said Meaghan Coker, OUSA President. “Most importantly, legislators understand that investment in our institutions and students are essential and a necessity for the long-term prosperity of our province.”
