C HAPTER 1: T HE P ROSPERITY C HALLENGE
That notwithstanding, there is a universal consensus that tuition should be suppressed – an absolutely rock-solid, universal consensus. Each political party believes it strongly. The Progressive Conservatives have been and continue to be committed to falling real tuition. The Liberals have promised to go further and freeze tuition. And the NDP — who knows? But none of these parties are crazy. Their polling numbers show that the electorate is overwhelmingly behind suppressing tuition. And students are vigorously and vocally against any increases in tuition. Even university professors are generally against increases in tuition. So what supports and sustains this powerful consensus? First, it is comfortable. “No increase” feels better, for all the above groups, than does an increase and the hassles that would come with it. Second is the issue of access. The fear is that with higher tuition, access will be impacted negatively. This is a very important issue, which we should explore. Tuition is indeed higher in the U.S., including in our peer states, though not nearly so much higher as the comparison to US$35,000 Ivy League tuitions make it sound. Fifty-four per cent of full time U.S. students pay tuition (including fees) of US$5,000 or less, many pay a lot less. The average across all full-time students is US$9,000. So tuition is indeed higher in the U.S. — and that logically creates a question of access. However, it must be understood that increased education has a strong private return to the individual for each increasing level of education. This is well documented. Thus, it is in the student’s interest to invest in his or her education because it pays off. So, if the higher tuition in the U.S. discourages access among less well-to-do students, we should expect to observe higher participation rates in university education among the poor in Canada versus the U.S. Otherwise there would be no accessibility problem linked to higher tuition levels. And among well-to-do kids, we would expect equally high participation in Canada as in the U.S., because they should be insensitive to the cost of education and should understand the economic benefit to which I just referred. If anything, participation among wealthy kids in Canada should be higher if they show any price sensitivity at all. In Canada, wealthy kids should participate at a rate at least as high as in the U.S., and poor kids at a greater rate. We should observe higher participation in Canada than the US, if accessibility is the real problem. So let’s go to the data. Per 1,000 of population, the U.S. graduates more university students per year than Ontario by eight per cent and more than Canada by 23 per cent. This is the opposite of what the above accessibility theory holds.
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