The dream of free education up to university resurfaced last week: 2,000 people demonstrated in the streets of Montreal for the tenth anniversary of Maple Spring. Far from being a utopia, the elimination of tuition fees is quite possible, but would not be a panacea, warn experts.
Free education at university would have a price: 1.36 billion dollars, according to data from Statistics Canada. This is the value of tuition fees paid by university students in Quebec in 2019-2020. This sum represents 17% of the total income of $8 billion from Quebec universities that year.
Free education from preschool to university was one of the recommendations of the Parent commission, recalls Michel Umbriaco, professor specializing in financing higher education at TELUQ. French-speaking Quebecers had a huge educational gap to catch up on. “Free access is still a goal that is laudable in terms of social values. It becomes a political choice,” he said.
The bill of 1.36 billion per year for free education at the university would be a big mouthful to swallow: this sum would represent 1% of the total expenditure of the Quebec State. It would also be 13.5% of the budget of the Ministry of Higher Education in 2022-2023. This is a considerable expense, but to govern is to choose the expenses deemed most relevant, underlines Michel Umbriaco.
Countries like Denmark and France have made the political choice of free universities. Even better, Danish students are paid to do their baccalaureate (and for internships). However, this model is very expensive, to the point that the French President, Emmanuel Macron, recently mentioned the end of free access in France.
It is true that governments are facing unprecedented budgetary challenges. The pandemic, the cost of living crisis, the war in Ukraine and many other factors are increasing financial pressures on States.
This does not prevent European countries from devoting more public funds to universities than those of North America: more than 80% of expenditure on higher education is public in 10 European countries, according to the Organization for economic development (OECD). In Canada, about 50% of higher education spending is public. This proportion in Quebec (where tuition fees are lower than elsewhere in the country) is undoubtedly close to that of European states, experts estimate.
“Universities are part of the development strategy of Quebec and of the West in general. Governments know that higher education is a profitable investment”, emphasizes Michel Umbriaco.
He notes that the Legault government announced this week additional funding of $1.2 billion over five years for CEGEPs and universities. The Ministry of Higher Education is entitled to the largest relative budget increase of all state missions — 13% over one year. The department’s budget crosses the symbolic bar of 10 billion dollars.
A “reasonable” compromise
The rectors welcomed the investments of Quebec, but recall that the universities are facing growing needs. Beyond the pandemic, establishments must invest in digital and cybersecurity, recalls Pierre Cossette, rector of the University of Sherbrooke. He is president of the Bureau de coopération interuniversitaire, which brings together the 18 Quebec universities.
Institutions also expect additional space needs, because the demographic wave that is hitting primary and secondary schools will overflow into CEGEPs and universities. The budget provides 232.5 million over the next 5 years for the rental (and not the construction) of spaces.
The rectors believe that the tuition indexation compromise adopted in 2013, in the wake of Maple Spring, is “reasonable”. “We are not at all keen on reopening the university funding formula [pour introduire la gratuité], says Pierre Cossette. It feels like a balance has been struck right now. »
Michel Poitevin, professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Montreal, considers that the indexation of tuition fees is a minimum. “I tell my students: ‘If you want to pay less for your studies or have them for free, the quality will go down,'” he warns.
In France, where the university is free, access to certain programs is limited, for lack of resources. This gives rise to elitism, as at Polytechnique, where a handful of students are admitted each year, notes the professor. “We have a lot of French students in Quebec who are very happy to study with us. They say that the teachers are more accessible,” says Michel Poitevin.
The most progressive way to promote access to studies is not to lower prices for everyone, it is to give scholarships to those who need them.
He believes that adjusting tuition fees to training costs would help universities stay afloat. He and his team had calculated, a decade ago, that this formula would bring in 200 million per year to Quebec establishments.
Modulation would be a fair method, according to the professor, because the most expensive training courses to offer, in medicine, engineering or dentistry, for example, are those which bring in the best salaries for graduates (who have the means to reimburse their student loans). The price of training in the humanities or social sciences would remain stable.
“The most progressive way to promote access to studies is not to lower prices for everyone, it is to give scholarships to those who need them. The one who lives in a big cabin in Westmount, he pays, ”sums up the professor.