University Students: More for Less

Once again, my fellow university students are fighting to get their tuition fees reduced. I do feel that we pay too much at the universities, but I'm starting to see the reasons why. University students are an interesting bunch. The South Park guys would say they like to smell their own farts. They're very smug. They think they're progressive and attentive to the issues. They're not. The issue of tuition fees has become all too black and white. These students should know better than to treat it like that.

The tuition debate has been raging for the past several years. In some fields, such as law, tuition has been increasing nearly exponentially. On average though, tuition increases this year were roughly between 1-6%. Dalton McGuinty followed through on an election promise to freeze fees for two years only. When the freeze was lifted, many students felt he had broken a promise. Though I do not like the man, he did not lie or break any promises in this case. The freeze was clearly stated to be for two years only, with caps of up to 6% after. Students still feel cheated.

Now here's the kicker. While students have been protesting the huge increases in tuition, they have also been demanding more on campus services. Services that cost money. Where I go, demands include 24 hour quiet study space, a more advanced gym, more money for clubs, and even child care services. In other words, they want to pay less money in tuition, but they want more money for other things. Often these demands are non-academic, related to what they call "campus life".
As an example, $5 is added to tuition for a dedicated fund to help purchase new books for the library. A poll of the student population held by the student council asked whether or not this money should be moved to fund clubs instead. I cannot remember the results of the vote, but I believe the student council's plan was voted in favour of transferring the funds. However, this was only a plebiscite, not a referendum. Only the university's administrators can make the final decision. I think this does show where the priorities are.
The more recent issue of child care at the universities has become a hot topic. The vast majority of students are aged 18-24. Staff members tend to range from 40-60. Most of the staff and students are outside of average child bearing age, which now is probably 25-35. The children of staff members tend to be old enough to look after themselves for short periods of time. So this begs the question, is child care really necessary. I think not. In four years, I've only met one student who had a young child. Universities should not be in the business of running such programs because they are such a financial drain. You have to hire day care workers and designate a room, buy toys and educational material. All that for a very small number of people. Likely, all students would be forced to share the burden of these services, rather than just those using them.

So who do these students want to pay for their new services? Ironically, themselves. Not in the form of tuition but in the form of higher taxes. They want tax payers to fork up the bill for their education. That would be a huge burden when government coffers are already stretched thin trying to pay for health care and primary & secondary educational services. There simply isn't enough money to have a "free" university system without having huge tax increases. I'm sorry my fellow students, but you're just going to have to buckle down, start saving, and stop wasting so much money on beer and parties. That's life, get used to it.
Besides, if university were "free", you can't honestly tell me you wouldn't take it for granted.