So as I said in a previous post the University of Calgary’s tuition is set to raise again this month. That will make 17 years of tuition hikes of more than twice the rate of inflation.
But here’s something to make you even more angry, turn green and destroy all the clothes you are wearing save your handsome purple pants:
For the first time in anyone’s memory anywhere the Students’ Union and Graduate Student Association have decided they will not lead protests. Instead they will sit idly on their hands and let the maximum legally allowed tuition hike of 6.3 percent go unchallenged.
WTF?!?
How can they say they are representing the best interests of their students if they don’t even oppose a tuition hike? If they were to do nothing else in office except one thing, wouldn’t you think that would be it?
Instead they say they will work with the Board of Governors to make sure the newly collected money is spent on – according to undergraduate president Julie Bogle – “better quality education”.
Uh-huh… And what exactly do you think they’ve been spending the previous increases on? Everything the University board does is to improve the education of students!!! I dare you to name one thing they spent money on that did not at least indirectly improve the quality of the education at UofC. Go ahead… No, no; I’ll wait.
…
Okay while those folks are off on that wild goose chase I’ll tell you what I think should happen: do BOTH. Crazy idea, huh?
Why can’t they be arguing for more directly student related spending AND protesting their tookus off? One doesn’t preclude the other! They need to get off their lazy asses and get a movement going. Make rational arguments in the boardroom AND show you have the student body behind you at a rally. Show them the impact tuition is having on students AND carry placards. Suggest viable alternatives AND have a tent city representing where student are going to have to live if something isn’t done NOW.
Either Julie Bogle and David Colletto and their vice presidents do this or they should probably get ready for the student body to start protesting them. Students may be apathetic most of the time but I’m not convinced they can take this kind of a slap in the face from their own ELECTED representatives. They may not be able to vote out the UofC Board of Governors but they certainly can fire them. And permanently harm any future political aspirations they may have in the process.
It will soon be 17 years of fee hikes of more than twice the rate of inflation. Can you imagine if the City did that to your property taxes? What would you do if the federal government did that to your income tax rate? We’d probably all get outrageously angry and oust the government as soon an election was available. I doubt a government could even go for more than 4 years of raising a fee of any kind in this manner before they were turfed from office.
But this is exactly what is happening at the University of Calgary (and most other post secondary institutions in Alberta) as their Board of Governors will once again raise tuition next month by the maximum legally allowed by the provincial government for the 17th straight year.
Think about that for a second… 17 years in a row.
Over that time tuition has gone from slightly less than $1,000 a year to slightly more than $5,000 per year. That’s an increase of more than 500% in the time it took a mom and dad’s new baby to start thinking about what s/he would like to take at university and do for the rest of their lives. How can a parent save for something that so wildly increases in price in such a short period of time? No wonder we have students graduating from our universities and upon notice of having to pay back their student loans they promptly become homeless. Even though they have a good steady job they love.
It’s enough to make you go insane. Insane because there are none of the usually expected checks and balances we find in other systems. Students and citizens can’t vote for who is on a university board. Heck, when they renewed the UofC president’s contract the university didn’t even follow their own rules by having a formal committee with students sitting on it. (That’s a story for another day though. Let’s stay focused here, okay? Eyes on the prize.)
I guarantee our universities will continue this trend unless WE help them stop. Yes, us. You and me. It is the only way. And because of that I fear our students may face another 17 years of tuition hikes. Sigh.
