Tuition to grow 5% without end in sight
The Faculty Council meeting on October 24 focused on the proposed intersession, the faculty budget, and tuition. It was well-attended by students, but less so by faculty.
Intersession
Professor and Assistant Dean Albert Yoon presented the Faculty’s revised plan for an intersession term. The intersession was proposed last year as a way to allow upper-year students to take a one- or two-week intensive course in January with a visiting academic or practitioner.
After much backlash last year from students, the Curriculum Committee made significant changes. 1L StAG Representative Rachael Girolametto-Prosen, a member of the Curriculum Committee, gave her support for the proposed intersession, saying that it was a result of a “successful collaboration process” between the faculty and students.
The start date for the proposed intersession would be in January 2020, taking place as a week-long, one-credit seminar course with four 3-hour long classes. The idea behind the intersession term is to bring a diverse range of legal practitioners and academics from across Canada and the United States to involve students in the intellectual discourse occurring within legal academia.
Although the intersession will push out both the start and end date of winter term, it would still fall within the framework of the semester as dictated by the University and would not rely on any deemed days. For current 2Ls, this intersession will be fully optional. Only current 1Ls and subsequent classes would be impacted.
Budget and tuition
“Quality of faculty is the best in Canada by a mile.”
Dean Iacobucci
Dean Edward Iacobucci prefaced the budget presentation by stating that the Faculty Council has no direct authority over the budget and can only make recommendations. Ultimately, it is the Provost who has the authority to decide on recommendations. If approved, recommendations are taken to the Governing Council for approval.
Dean Iacobucci started the budget presentation with slides to provide context on the Faculty’s own budget and tuition.
The University’s $2.7-billion budget is currently supported by two main sources of revenue: student fees (62%) and government operating grants (25%). The largest operating expense for the University is attributed to staff and faculty compensation, totaling 62% of expenses.
Historically, the operating grant has been the largest source of revenue. But in the past 25 years, it has decreased significantly and is now one of the smallest revenue streams for the University.
In 2006, 44% of the budget came from the operating grant, as compared to this year’s 25%. In 2022—2023, it is projected at 21%.
The continuing decrease in government funding means that the University has been increasingly relying on other revenue streams, such as student fees and philanthropy.
Since domestic tuition is regulated and capped at a 3% increase (5% for professional faculties), while international tuition is not, Dean Iacobucci noted that it is international students that are “keeping the university afloat at the moment.” Currently, international tuition makes up roughly 30% of the University’s revenue, compared to domestic tuition and operating grants at 50% combined.
Part of the University’s budget model is that every faculty, including Law, pays 10% of tution fees to the University. Most of this money is ultimately redistributed back to programs across the university, similar to equalization payments. The Faculty of Law is actually a net recipient of these funds, as the university fund makes up roughly 10% of the faculty’s revenue while being 7% of its expenses. As to the Faculty’s other sources of revenue, they were: tuition (58%); operating grants (13%); recoveries (6%); endowments (7%); and other (6%). Meanwhile, the Faculty’s remaining operating expenses were: compensation (51%); university-wide costs (19%) and financial aid (11%) and other (12%). The Dean emphasized that operating grants 25 to 30 years ago, as a percentage of revenue, were “in the 80s”.
Lastly, the Dean highlighted that the financial aid pot grew 10% last year and was projected to grow more than that this year.
To sum up why the Faculty’s tuition is so expensive, Dean Iacobucci displayed a temporal bar chart of the Faculty of Law’s budgetary challenge. While operating expenses have been increasing, operating grants and university fund allocation have stagnated.
Dean Iacobucci explained that the aforementioned factors have resulted in a situation where the faculty “can’t back away from the 5% increase.” Although U of T Law has taken cost-cutting measures in the past, such as ending the Internationally Trained Lawyers program, he was adamant in saying that “we are not going to cut costs if it cuts quality.”
Afterwards, Students’ Law Society (SLS) President Solomon McKenzie (3L) presented a speech regarding the tuition rates paid by U of T Law students.
In his speech, SLS President McKenzie discussed the comparative stagnation of wages in private practice, government, and beyond. SLS President McKenzie also commended the Excellence Without Barriers Campaign started by students and alumni, and noted the “inherently unstable” reliance on philanthropy to bolster the financial aid system.
Concluding the meeting, Dean Iacobucci took questions from attendees. Asked to identify the factors that made U of T Law more expensive than other Canadian law schools, the Dean argued, the “quality of faculty is the best in Canada by a mile,” as is the faculty-student ratio.
When asked what he thought would be too much for tuition, Dean Iacobucci could not provide a definitive answer. He stated that the law school has not seen a decline in the quality or quantity of applicants.
In a response to the question of whether he would increase tuition above 5% if possible, Dean Iacobucci said, “I certainly would never aim to raise it more than 5%. But… I can’t commit. I can’t commit my future dean, I can’t even commit myself, depending on what else happens.” He then said deregulation of tuition would bother him less than a freeze on tuition.
When pressed on why tuition increased from the low two-thousand dollars, when the Dean was a student here, to over thirty-eight thousand dollars today, the Dean blamed the stagnating government grants and pointed out that every other law school in Ontario was also charging more than twenty-thousand dollars.
This piece was updated on November 4, 2018.
