Post-secondary students deserve reduced tuition
There won’t be the usual exciting hubbub on the first day of classes on Canada’s university and other post-secondary campuses this fall. And that’s a shame. Instead, students will be at home (their parents’ home?) sitting in front of a screen waiting for their first instructor, first class of the semester; sitting alone, watching the small digital faces of their fellow classmates.
This is all necessary because COVID-19 is still too widespread and contagious to allow for in-person classes and other gatherings on university campuses.
But given the shrinking of campus life and all the amenities it offers — meeting people you wouldn’t ordinarily come across, easy socializing, discussing the state of the world and binge watching Netflix late into the night with your roommates, student clubs and organizations, perhaps meeting your spouse-to-be — is it not time to consider reducing student tuition fees?
University isn’t just about classes and if students aren’t getting the full meal deal surely they should not have to pay for it.
Student organizations have been pitching for that with little response. But they have a strong ally in Alison Taylor, a professor of educational studies at the University of British Columbia.
In a recent article on an academic website, Taylor argues that given that students are worried about the quality of online learning and that most students lost their usual summer income because of the coronavirus, money they needed to pay for attending a university or technical college, tuition fees should be reduced.
Taylor backs up her argument with the results of a survey of 1,100 high school and post-secondary students conducted by the Canadian Federation of Students and the Canadian Association of University teachers during the last week of April.
It revealed that, for seven out of 10 respondents, COVID-19 negatively affected their summer employment plans.
This is no surprise since so many students rely on hotels, restaurants, bars and retail for summer jobs and such jobs are extremely limited this year.
Of course, many students continue working throughout the academic year, squeezing in classes and homework between work shifts that often take priority when it comes to scheduling.
The combination of jobs and student loans carries most students through the financial demands, but Taylor has found in her own survey that students’ competing commitments clearly take a toll. More than two-thirds of students (68 per cent) in a 2018 survey reported stress or anxiety as problems at work, while 58 per cent reported fatigue.
As an instructor at two universities in Calgary, it was easy to spot the stress on students who had to maintain full academic schedules and shift work that they could easily lose if they didn’t show up. Some students wonder if a university degree is worth the effort. Others succumb to anxiety and depression and join the long waiting lists for in-house psychological counselling.
To add to their troubles, in its last budget the Alberta government: lifted a freeze on tuition, which means it will likely rise by seven per cent annually; increased the interest rate on student loans; and reduced government funding to all post-secondary institutions.
It’s almost as though the government doesn’t want young people to further their education, even though Alberta needs a highly educated and skilled workforce if it is to transition to a stronger economy. At least not young people who can’t afford to pay their own way.
Online learning has its benefits, especially for graduate students who may already be immersed in a career. Or, for undergraduates in classes of 400 where they are but a cipher and the prof never reads their papers, only grad students read them.
But there is true value in smaller in-person classes with a savvy, enthusiastic instructor and curious outspoken students.
And there’s something truly invigorating about being in the middle of that hubbub on the first day of classes as students congregate in hallways and cafeterias, bubbling over with enthusiasm or nerves.
They shouldn’t be penalized any further than they already have by COVID-19.
Federal and provincial governments and post-secondary institutions need to figure out how to encourage students to register for their first year or continue their education by lessening the load of tuition fees.