As the start of the school year approaches, post-secondary students are fine-tuning their educational plans, but for many, the big question is not what major to pursue or what courses to take, but this: "How will I pay for it?"
When Premier Christy Clark made some modest improvements in the student-loan program in June, her announcement was panned as too little, too late. A more accurate assessment would be that she aimed at the wrong target.
Clark promised to reduce monthly payments for 2,500 low-income students. And she offered to forgive unpaid loans for a smaller number of single parents or students with disabilities.
As critics have noted, this is a drop in the bucket. Close to 165,000 British Columbians have student loans. If their experience matches the national trend, one in five cannot repay what they owe. About 33,000 of our young people are effectively bankrupt before their working lives begin.
The dollar amounts are staggering. By one estimate, the average university student in this province owes $27,000 upon graduating.
And every year the crisis deepens. While Canadians are slowly reining in other forms of borrowing, such as mortgages or car loans, student debt keeps expanding. Across the country, the Canada Student Loan program reports that outstanding debts are now $13 billion and rising.
So helping only the most desperate kids, while better than nothing, is really a Band-Aid approach. If our governments, provincial and national, are serious about this, they need to confront the problem at its roots.
The real cause of ever-expanding student debt is the ever-expanding cost of a university education. Ten years ago, the tuition fee for an undergraduate arts degree in B.C. was $9,000. Today, it is $20,000. That increase exceeds the rate of inflation by about 600 per cent.
On average, tuition rates at Canadian universities have grown twice as fast as the cost of living every year for 30 years. And they have more than doubled the increase in family income. That last number is the key. Affordability has to suffer when, over a prolonged period, prices outgrow ability to pay.
Perhaps the quality of education has risen correspondingly? It has not.
The most important factor in weighing quality is student-teacher ratios. Since 1987, full-time student enrolment at Canadian universities has increased 57 per cent. But the number of full-time faculty members has grown only 20 per cent.
If these trend lines are to be changed, a new approach is required in the way post-secondary institutions are funded. But where will that be found?
It would be unfair to suggest that universities are indifferent to the plight of students. Yet they have proved unable to bring their costs under control.
If fundamental change is to happen, governments must play a role. For every dollar students pay in tuition, taxpayers provide close to three. To protect that investment, governments have the right to demand a higher level of accountability.
The B.C. Ministry of Advanced Education has already told universities they must reduce overhead costs. That is a step in the right direction.
However, what we really need is a consensus about what a degree should cost. Naturally, there will be differences between the various specialties. But government should be able to work out a reasonable price with university administrators and make that figure stick.
Something of the kind is under way in other fields. Health ministries no longer simply hand hospitals an annual budget and tell them to do their best. They set a specific price for each procedure, and ask that it be met.
The promise of scholarly achievement is undermined when only the rich can afford it. And if nothing is done, that's where we are headed.
