Students and debt

Re: “Tuition dreams fight fiscal facts” (The Gazette, July 12)

Students are getting screwed by the boomer generation. That is the “elusive keystone issue” behind the tuition-hike protests, not just the debt as Henry Aubin suggests. And it isn’t just the students who are getting the short end of the stick – it’s every man, woman, and child who will inherit that debt, as well as the cost of the boomer’s health care and pensions.

Students will also also inherit huge environment issues, such as global warming. We’ve gone for short-term profits at every opportunity. We’ve moved manufacturing jobs offshore to get low prices for consumer goods. An unfortunate side effect is that there aren’t many manufacturing jobs left. Too bad for the students who will still have to deal with paying off their student loans in that economic climate.

It has been a Ponzi scheme that makes Bernie Madoff look like an amateur. As long as the population kept growing, there was a large enough cohort of young people to support the older generation without much of a burden. That’s how it was for the baby boomers whose parents had comparatively large families. But when it was the boomers’ turn to reproduce in sufficient numbers, we were too preoccupied with other things to get around to it.

It’s time for us boomers to pay our tab before it’s too late. It is unfair to single out students to pay more while we jealously guard our entitlements to health care and pensions. Students might willingly agree to pay their fair share when we, society more broadly, show our willingness to pay our fair share, too.

Daniel Nonen Montreal

Henry Aubin argues that even if Quebec balances its budget in two years time, as projected, it would still have to raise university student fees to help service the cost of its growing debt. However, this overlooks that the cost of servicing this debt is included in the budget, so that a balanced budget means the government has enough revenue to cover the cost of its debt.

As for limiting the absolute size of the debt, which also concerns Aubin, once the government’s budget is balanced its debt can grow only through capital expenditures. The best way to limit these expenditures is through tighter government control over the granting and supervision of contracts for capital work. It would also make a significant difference if the government charged all natural-resource companies royalties based on the value of the resources they’ve extracted rather than just on their net profits, as is done now.

If the current debt was run up by past generations, it should be up to them to pay it off, if any extra effort is necessary, not future generations of students.

Robert Hajaly Montreal