UMSU and the Canadian Federation of Students as guilty as the rest . . .

Ryan J. Weiss

In “Welcome back more expensive than usual,” published in a recent edition of the Manitoban, UMSU president Amanda Aziz presents her typically well-intentioned if not misplaced fanaticism against tuition-fee increases. While commendable in her aim, Aziz has yet again missed the bigger picture.

Most students who work to pay for their tuition expect — if not demand — an annual increase in their wages to offset inflation and increases to the cost of living, and yet Aziz continues to maintain that post-secondary education, unlike every other good or service, is immune to the basic principles of economics. Interestingly enough, it is the same students who protest in defence of their right to an increase in minimum wage to offset “increases in the cost of living” who also cry wolf the loudest when similar increases are proposed for tuition.

It has become the unofficial mandate of the current UMSU administration and the Canadian Federation of Students in Manitoba to maintain the tuition freeze put forth by the province of Manitoba. In fact, the tuition freeze has been arguably the most publicized issue in university politics in recent years. The reason being, of course, is its virtual universal appeal to students and the uniting power this mandate offers — after all, what student would not want a continued tuition freeze?

Of course, it is absolutely essential that post-secondary education be kept an affordable and accessible service to all citizens in our society, but to maintain an absolute zero-freeze on tuition for any extended period of time is not only unsustainable, it is downright foolhardy. Issues of student accessibility are not directly linked to tuition costs — and recent Statistics Canada studies have confirmed that.

While tuition has increased from a national average of $2,023 in 1993 to $3,577 in 2001, there has not been a measurable decrease in university participation rates across all income spectrums. I commend Aziz for her tireless lobbying efforts directed at keeping spiraling education costs under control. But shouldn’t UMSU and the CFS be mature enough to ask whether or not the tuition freeze is hurting students in the long run?

In my final year of undergraduate study (2004-05), I witnessed the “benefits” of the tuition freeze first-hand. At my last exam, I was told there were no pencils being provided and that we were to bring our own. When a student showed up without one, she was told that “because of the tuition freeze, the university has had to reduce expenses.” When another friend requested an academic reference from a professor to be sent to another university, she was informed that the university no longer has the funds to send academic references off-site and that she would have to mail it herself.

How much longer do we let our university sink farther in the national rankings as buildings begin to crumble and faculties continue to be understaffed? While UMSU likens a 17 per cent increase in tuition fees to a doomsday scenario, I propose a situation in which our degrees are worth half as much as those universities who have actually admitted that expenses do increase year after year. I ask: in which scenario is the absolute cost greater to the average student?

Yet the final irony comes when it is realized that the “ancillary fees” that UMSU has so valiantly reduced for each student are really an extra cost, attributed squarely on the shoulders of the students’ union. Students receive a tax credit for each dollar spent on education expenses. But by keeping the tuition freeze beyond a realistic and sustainable conclusion, the university has been forced to charge the increase in costs through ancillary fees. Aziz was exactly correct in stating that these fees will hardly go towards their stated purpose, but will instead be funneled into a growing pool of general expense.

However, in the coming tax season, these ancillary fees will not receive the same tax-credit status as tuition, as they are not classified by Revenue Canada as an education expense. So I ask UMSU and the CFS: how much have you really saved students, when you have eliminated the only benefit left to paying increased tuition? Perhaps that is the real question students should be asking the current UMSU administration.

Unrealistic, unsustainable, and, in the end, a direct expense to you, the student. Nobody likes tuition increases — but I challenge each student to take a hard look at who’s beginning to bear the real cost of the tuition freeze.

Ryan J. Weiss is a marketing and systems management graduate from the University of Manitoba.