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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, Education 2005: Sacrificing Student Need to Corporate Greed - Article﻿</title>﻿

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﻿<b﻿>﻿Education 2005: 

﻿<br﻿>﻿Sacrificing Student Need to Corporate Greed  

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by Heidi Mehta and Greg Sharzer﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, September 1996﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

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Picture education in 2005. Your parents have a house to mortgage for your tuition if you're lucky. If you're not, you go to the bank and they promise you a loan you won't start paying the principal on till you're 65. You want to take anthropology but the social science campus is in another city and you can't afford to move. You get to your first year business class held in the football stadium, where you're told that, due to cutbacks, there is no longer a prof and you will be sent weekly lessons by e-mail. No interaction, no meeting other students, no academic choice -- but you're one of the lucky ones who made it to university. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Sound ludicrous? Current trends in Ontario post-secondary education say it's not. As if rising tuition, larger classes and shrinking staff weren't enough, the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) will soon perish if the Tory government gets its way. Instead, students requiring assistance will be confronted with the much dreaded Income Contingent Loan Repayment Plan (ICLRP).Just as government grants were eliminated in recent years, interest-free loans will soon become a memory as the Tories attempt to sacrifice student need to corporate greed by handing control over student loans to the banks. The banks will prosper and the students will pay through this problematic scheme. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

ICLRPs will create injustices and problems of accessibility. As with any bank loan, interest will accrue from the moment the loan is negotiated up until it is paid .This means that those who earn less will pay more as interest will accumulate over a longer period of time. It is no surprise that members of disadvantaged groups, such as women, people with disabilities, and people of colour who face barriers in regards to gaining employment and are generally grossly underpaid will bear the brunt of the burden by paying more than those who earn more money and can repay their loans quicker. Thus ICLRPs will further hinder their chances of getting ahead through education by unfairly keeping them in a state of debt. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

This program will especially deter students from low income families and mature students from seeking a post-secondary education due to the fear of not being able to repay the loan because of one's financial situation. As well, students wishing to study courses that the banks deem "risky business investments" because they do not directly benefit businesses (such as aboriginal studies, women's studies, queer studies, anti-racist studies, etc.), may be denied loans and, hence, access to education. Clearly ICLRP will unfairly affect access to education. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Perhaps most disturbing is that this will mean the deregulation of tuition -- as has already occurred in the area of dentistry and in regards to international students. Tuition rates will skyrocket if deregulated, thus creating a society in which only the wealthy will be capable of affording an education and, therefore, opportunities for gainful employment. They will be the only ones allowed to acquire the tools necessary for assuming positions of power in society. The gap will widen between the haves and the have-nots as we move towards a plutocracy. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Analogous is the danger inherent in the idea of restructuring the education system to include more privatization. In a discussion paper entitled "Future Goals for Ontario Colleges and Universities" released in July, Education Minister John Snobelen proposes the establishment of privately-funded educational institutions. Surely this will create a two-tiered education system in which only those who can afford it will receive a top quality education. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The government also has plans to restructure the whole educational system by cutting department funding or closing whole departments. This will increase class sizes and decrease staff. For students too poor to travel for their education, it means a lack of choice in what to study. At the bottom of the 'specialization' plan is marketability: don't expect to see campuses devoted to liberal and fine arts programs such as creative writing or women's studies. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The report also suggests that links between the private sector and educational institutions need to be strengthened through such means as private sector funding of specialized educational programs. Although this may appeal to some as being resourceful, i.e. corporations actually paying for an education that should have the potential for benefiting society, the danger is that government will absolve itself of responsibility for education by passing the responsibility on to non-elected, non-representative, in short non-democratic, corporate interests. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Along with the Tories plans for catering to the demands of a global economy that puts profits before people is the expanding use of technology in the classroom. While technology can be beneficial in terms of efficiency, it is increasingly being used to eliminate teaching staff in a way that alienates students from their education. Many students can identify with the frustrating experience of having to write computer generated and corrected multiple choice exams - which can be a poor indicator of what one actually knows about a subject - because the funding required to support teaching assistants has been eliminated. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The outlook looks bleak, especially considering what the Ontario government has done so far. For starters they've shifted the burden of payment onto students; last year tuition went up 15 per cent for colleges and 20 per cent for universities. Combined with an across-the-board funding cut of 15 per cent to both institutions, students will personally pay for 34 per cent of the total budget this year, up from 23 per cent in 1995-96. If you're a full-time student at university, look to pay just under $3,000 for a year's education. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Meanwhile, continuing the Tory tradition of targeting the most vulnerable, by fall 1997, child-care bursaries for students will be gone. Sole-support parents going to school will no longer qualify for welfare, losing important subsidiary benefits like a drug plan. Instead they will receive OSAP, a loan they will be expected to repay - as if raising a child didn't cost enough already. These changes start at the beginning of the 1996-97 school year. Of course, OSAP doesn't work like welfare it's rarely ready at the start of the month, which means sole-support parents will have to make up at least an extra month on their own. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The impact of these trends is already being felt. Last year there was an eight per cent drop in university applications. For example, at York University in Toronto, 20 per cent of 1991 undergrads came from backgrounds where their parents made less than $20,000 annually. By 1994 that figure was 10 per cent. Working class students are being squeezed from the education system, and Tory cuts promise to widen that gap. Combine that with a 16 per cent unemployment rate for Ontario students, and there is no way to pay your debts - except through ICLRPs. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

With the growth of Canada's economy in the 1960s we gained ﻿an education system that began to be accessible, in cost, curriculum and location. There was room for extra "frills" like educating poor students. But times have changed and tuition rates have been rising steadily for a decade -- now our rulers want only to educate those it needs to run capitalism. Children of the elite will become the doctors, lawyers and managers of the system. This is not about "a different vision of Ontario," it's about securing Canada's place in the global market, where increased competition means lower operating costs, so Canada can be more attractive to capitalists. Education is no longer a right, it's an expense which cuts into revenue. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The situation calls for a powerful response. Workers and students alike, both victims of capitalist competition, must recognize their common enemies and fight together. Come out and fight this assault on the right to education by joining the October days of action against the Harris government. On October 25 and 26, unite with the workers in shutting Toronto down. Stand up and tell the Tories that the majority of Ontarians will not be bullied into accepting a counter-democratic corporate agenda. 

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