Alex Carmona (3L)
If there is one issue which I can already assume every student has familiarity, it is the tuition debate. No-one spends thirty grand lightly, and parting with that kind of dough every year has put most students squarely on the same side year after year. You would be hard pressed to find any real support among the U of T Law student body for the administration’s firm position that tuition needs to be raised by the maximum amount year after year after year. While the administration has yet to budge on the matter, we have kept up fairly unwavering pressure, be it through Ultra Vires articles, Follies skits, Students’ Law Society (SLS) lobbying, or valedictorian speeches.
The physical circumstances of the law school contribute to the ease with which we as students have been able present a united front on this issue. As a few grey-bearded 4Ls remember, we used to go to school in what was effectively a dungeon. The laughable facilities of old Falconer and Flavelle were an embarrassment to U of T Law’s image, an image the administration is undoubtedly eager to shed through the extremely convenient three-to-four year institutional memory wipe that is a hallmark of universities everywhere.
Now we’re nomads, shuffling around Victoria College and hemorrhaging cash while we wait for the glorious new building many of us will never see. The impending completion of Jackman Hall, however, presents the administration with a golden opportunity to derail the tuition debate and re-frame it on their terms. Once we’ve moved out of Victoria College, we’ll no longer be a nomadic, debt-plagued crop of students complaining that, for $33,000, we should get outlets at every seat and real tables to write our exams on. Instead, the administration has the chance to wow students with shiny new amenities like extra study space, a decent cafeteria (hopefully) and outlets fucking EVERYWHERE.
What’s important to remember is that, while the new building obviously presents a massive cost to the school, U of T Law’s sky-high tuition was not born of that cost. Further, tuition rates will not start to drop once construction costs for the new building are born out. The administration has raised tuition over 700% since 2003—the odds of that trend seeing a reversal are slim indeed. This is why the student body as a whole must make a conscious decision to keep the pressure on, even when we are presented with the glitz and glam of Jackman Hall. In the years to come, the administration will in all likelihood point to the building during tuition negotiations (or, more accurately, the laughable shams that pass for tuition negotiations). “This is what your tuition pays for!”, accompanied by wild gesticulation toward what will certainly be a gorgeous building, may be the administration’s new rallying cry. Absent strong leadership from the current 1Ls and 2Ls, U of T Law’s future generations risk being taken in by such verbal sleight of hand.
This is not to say that I think the tuition debate is at risk of being shut down altogether should this occur. But the sorry state of affairs is that, as of now, student efforts to get tuition increases under control have been one collective dismal failure, even with the aforementioned united front and lackluster facilities. If we ever expect to get anywhere (and by we, I of course mean you, 1L reader), the school’s future student leaders must work to keep up what little momentum there is, and must make a conscious effort to keep vital institutional memory alive during its precarious transition out of the Transition Space.
