Education doesn’t come cheap

2015-03-03

It’s a rite of passage for any young person. The last year of high school, thumbing through college and university brochures, looking to see where the next two, four, six years of their lives are going to be spent.

However, these days, many a young student is being turned off by another part of the post-secondary experience: the price tag.

According to Statistics Canada, the average undergrad is paying 13.6 per cent more than a student would be five years ago. That’s nearly double the rate of inflation over the same period of time, according to the Bank of Canada.

And some programs have been hit with higher hikes. The average dentistry student is paying about 17.2 per cent more. There’s also 17.4 per cent for pharmacy students…the list goes on.

Go back even further, and that number becomes more staggering. According to a report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the cost of going to school has nearly tripled since 1990, back when the average tuition was $2,243. Students now can be expected to cough up at least $6,000. Using the same numbers from the Bank of Canada, if tuition were to go up by the rate of inflation, the average tuition should be closer to $3,600.

And that doesn’t even include the costs of living accommodations, food and text books.

While it has been pointed out that the provincial government now offers a 30 per cent rebate on post-secondary programs, that doesn’t amount to as much when you realize that tuition rates have gone up 265 per cent in the last 25 years.

Looking at these numbers, it is very easy to see why some students at the north campus of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology are upset and are threatening to walk out of classes later this month to make their point. Students at the downtown campus voted earlier in the month to do the same.

While, in the grand scheme of things, it may be unrealistic for post-secondary education to be free — the eventual goal of the strike’s message, according to organizers — it definitely could stand to be much cheaper.

After all, it’s a touch pill to swallow when university deans and administration officials across the province make regular appearances on the Sunshine List for making six-figure salaries, whiles students have to shoulder thousands of dollars in debt for years to come.