A high quality university system is also an accessible university system. It is important to ensure that the cost of higher education does not become a barrier to qualified students in Ontario.

Unfortunately, chronic underfunding means that universities have shifted the cost of delivering quality education onto students. In Ontario, tuition has soared to two and a half times what it was 20 years ago (in inflation-adjusted dollars). Ontario undergraduates have the second highest tuition fees in Canada, topped only by Nova Scotia. Ontario graduate students pay the highest fees in the country.

Ontario students pay more – both in absolute dollars and in the proportion of total university revenue – than their peers across Canada and at comparable American universities. The consequences are not surprising. Graduates have historically high levels of debt. Moreover, less affluent students may not able to afford to attend university in the first place, or feel compelled to choose courses of study that will lead to a high income. And that means important lower-paying occupations will have trouble attracting new talent.

Since 2006, tuition increases in Ontario have been limited to an average of five per cent a year for every institution. This policy has hardly restrained costs; by the end of the 2009-10 school year, tuition will be 20 per cent higher than it was in 2006. This policy is also set to expire in 2010. In an environment of under-funding, there will be serious pressure to allow tuition to rise even more.

Ontario students are paying too much. It’s time to tell Premier McGuinty to control the costs of university education.

The bottom line?

Tuition fees should be frozen at current levels.
The Ontario government should invest $1 billion more a year in universities to ensure tuition is affordable, educational quality is preserved and improved, and that universities have the physical and financial resources to conduct cutting-edge research.

TAKE ACTION

For more analysis, please see the OCUFA reports Comparative Student Tuition and Fee Revenue and The Tuition Trap.