Over the past year Ontario has brought in a raft of new regulations restricting the fees that universities are permitted to charge, while also providing more assistance to students to pay for the ever-increasing cost of higher education. Under Premier Kathleen Wynne, Brad Duguid, Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities, has implemented a series of new measures—much to the universities’ objection.
The changes have included reducing the cap on tuition fee increases, imposing limits on part-time tuition fees (commonly known as flat fees), removing deferral fees on government loans, and new agreements with universities about their role in the province.
Duguid has brought a clear strategy to the table, trying to “support the needs of our economy and students,” as he puts it. He took over from Glen Murray, a minister under former Premier Dalton McGuinty, who dealt with multiple leaks and policy turnarounds, leaving the university sector unclear about the government’s direction. A year ago there was talk about implementing a government-set undergraduate tuition fee, and switching to three-year bachelor’s degrees with three terms per year. There was also talk of having three-fifths of courses delivered online, possibly by a government-run institute. All of that now seems to have disappeared (the province’s new online institute will merely provide courses from universities, while taking a cut of the tuition fees).
For now, Duguid wants to focus on educating the next generation entering Ontario’s economy. The first thing was reining in tuition fees.
“The best we could do was that we put in place a tuition framework that was going to lower the ability of institutions to increase fees as much as they had in the past. That is why we lowered the tuition framework to 3 percent for undergrads and 5 percent for grad and professional students.”
For reference, in the same period the Consumer Price Index in Ontario rose 1.5 percent.
“At the same time, I know it is challenging for students. There is OSAP [Ontario Student Assistance Program] available, but the problem with that is law students will graduate with a very large debt load.”
Currently the province no longer provides the majority of the funding to universities and even most of its funding is now in the form of loans and grants to students rather than teaching funding to universities.
Duguid went into detail explaining how the Liberals are trying to help students financially, both before (“front-end”) and after (“back-end”) graduation.
“There are breaks at the back-end, but it is still tough,” said Duguid. “We are spending about one billion dollars per year through OSAP grants and the 30 Percent Off program, and the fact is we are in a deficit situation fiscally. I am not anticipating anything new in terms of big new costly assistance programs. We have put forward a number of program in the last few years that have made a substantial impact. We recognize the challenge and there are not a lot of easy answers to bring down the cost.”
Law students, much like other graduate and professional students, do not qualify for the 30 Percent Off program.
“It is something we would love to do at some point in time. Our fiscal situation does not allow us to do that because that would be very costly,” said Duguid, adding that the government can not afford professional school tuition fees without taking on further debt, which it is trying to reduce.
As for the future, Duguid said the government is investigating the possibility of increasing aid post-graduation.
“For now, what we are focusing on is that back-end assistance that most students are not even aware about,” he said.
That kind of assistance can make a large difference. A typical U of T law student who is eligible for OSAP will get about $22,500 dollars in grants (some upfront, but mostly back-end) and another $22,500 dollars in loans. Additionally, federal education tax credits should provide about $30,000 dollars more in back-end relief, bringing the cost of a $90,000 U of T Law degree down by less than half to about $12,500 dollars per year before living expenses.
With an election widely expected sometime later this year, there is also much talk about alternative approaches. The Conservative opposition has put forward plans to deregulate fees for “research-intensive” universities as part of a series of “white paper” proposals. This will allow universities to charge much higher fees.
“Tim Hudak’s plan for post-secondary education is very short-sighted,” said Duguid. “First and foremost they want to do away with the 30 Percent Off program, taking hundreds of millions of dollars out of the pocket of low- and middle-income students. It is incredibly short-sighted, because we need those students to attend post-secondary education and join a competitive labour force.”
“Secondly, the plan was very elitist. The province has a role to play in terms of stewardship. We – I – want to make sure our world-class globally competitive universities, such as U of T, which is highly ranked globally in a number of different areas, continue to excel.”
