C HAPTER 1: T HE P ROSPERITY C HALLENGE
So the U.S. has managed to deal with its accessibility problem better than Canada despite higher tuition. That is, unless our accessibility to the poor is higher, and our overall numbers are lower because our wealthy kids skip university because they are lazier and less intelligent than their U.S. counterparts. I don’t believe this. The political left, in particular, has this issue all wrong. It should actually read more Karl Marx, who in 1890 launched a blistering attack on subsidized university tuition, arguing that it is simply a subsidy for the rich out of general tax revenues. He is right and the left is wrong. High tuitions in the U.S. help to fund generous scholarships for needy students. Is U.S. accessibility perfect? Hardly, but higher U.S. tuition has not led to lower accessibility than in Ontario. And the conservatives have it wrong as well. True economic prosperity depends heavily on higher education, and starving higher education isn’t helping a bit. Students also have it wrong. This is the most important investment they will likely make in their lives, and suppressing its quality does nobody a bit of good. And parents have it wrong. This is the best investment they can make on behalf of their children. Basically, this is an issue in which every relevant constituency is dead wrong — and they have no logic or data to buttress their views. The status quo is comfortable and remains well entrenched in an unwitting conspiracy of corrosive complacency. As such, it is a challenge of will: will to do the best thing for Ontario’s future. Ontario faces a choice. We need to show will on this issue if we are to reverse the slide and close the prosperity gap. Without will, we will continue to slide, and in relatively short order, will lose complete touch with the lead pack of prosperous economies.
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