Private service, public cost: Canadians confront rising user fees

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"Although Macleans magazine still lists Acadia University as the second best university in the nation, the current administration has caused misery and turmoil for its workers, for students who can no longer afford to attend Acadia and for the broader community. They have viciously promoted privatization efforts on campus by contracting out unionized maintenance workers to Sodexo-Marriott who reduced their wages and hours worked. Sodexo-Marriott has opened new coffee outlets across campus causing financial problems for local coffee shop owners in this small university town.

"As well, part-time faculty at Acadia are paid one of the lowest stipends in Canada to teach in overcrowded classrooms and without access to office equipment, supplies and computers to enhance their work, even though Acadia's Advantage program forces new students to use IBM laptops to complete their coursework. And Acadia now has the highest tuition rates for undergraduate students in Canada."

Barbara Moore, President, CUPE 3912

Those costs spiral upwards into the thousands of dollars when it comes to post-secondary education. In the last decade, university and college tuition fees have more than doubled, rising an average 125 per cent. In that decade, Alberta fees nearly tripled. In some instances, provincial governments are completely deregulating fees for "professional" programs such as law, dentistry, business administration and engineering, with institutions left to charge whatever they see fit. Tuition fees at the University of Toronto include $25,000 for a telecommunications engineering master’s program, $8,000 for law, $11,000 for medicine and $12,000 for dentistry.

Colleges and universities are also raising ancillary fees — everything from library materials to parking and administration fees — at an alarming rate. At London’s University of Western Ontario, ancillary fees are more than $750 of the $5,424 cost for one year of an undergraduate science program. Acadia’s $1,494 in undergraduate ancillary fees brings yearly tuition fees to $5,744. These charges, which are not regulated by provincial governments, are a hidden and uncontrolled way for institutions to make up for shrinking public funding.

The average student debt load for a four-year undergraduate program has tripled from $8,000 to $25,000 — and continues to grow. Privatization of the Canada Student Loans program means those lending the money at the federal level — the CIBC and Royal Bank — get a $75 million payment from the federal government as a "risk premium" to cover the costs of potential defaults. Meanwhile, those who would benefit most from post-secondary education — women, people of colour, low-income students and people with disabilities — are the least able to shoulder an enormous debt.