Since 2013, tuition fees have been indexed according to household disposable income per capita. Minister Danielle McCann was forced to intervene to avoid the 8.2% increase that the application of this principle would have caused this year and limit the increase to 2.4%.
Posted at 11:00 a.m.
Rather than continuing on the path of a sustained increase in tuition fees, Quebec should imitate Germany, which abolished tuition fees in recent years, as well as other countries that practice free education. In the most recent publication1 from the Institute for Socioeconomic Research and Information (IRIS), we show that implementing such a measure in Quebec would cost only $1.2 billion, or less than 0.9% of total expenditures in the Quebec budget.
From free education to the neoliberal model of student debt
Free education, often presented as a fad, has in fact been the norm in several social democratic countries since the last century and in force today, notably in Germany, France, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. . In the latter country, students even receive a form of student salary, which protects them from economic insecurity.
It was the neoliberal revolution, initiated in the 1970s and 1980s, which led some countries to abandon free education, reduce the share of public funding and increase the burden on students and households.
For example, the United Kingdom, which practiced free tuition until 1998, is now part of the club of countries where tuition fees are the highest in the world with, among others, the United States, Canada and the United States. ‘Australia.
The neoliberal model is not only based on high fees, but also on high student debt. In the United States, for example, student debt is in the trillions, and President Biden is forced to intervene to try to curb the situation. However, studies show that high tuition fees and the prospect of going into debt have an “aversion” effect, especially among the less well-off, turning them away from higher education. Since the implementation of loan programs does not alter the effect of this barrier to entry, this model is detrimental to accessibility to studies.
There is strong pressure for countries that practice free education to imitate Anglo-Saxon countries. We think for example of France, where Emmanuel Macron tried to defend increases in tuition fees, which caused an outcry in public opinion. The example of Germany is also interesting: several federal states made increases at the turn of 2010 before backpedaling, believing that the German tradition of free education was better than the Anglo-Saxon model involving high fees.
University and decline
If the commodified university seeks to maximize its income by increasing tuition fees, it is also because it is enlisted in the logic of maximum growth that characterizes the mode of development of our societies. It is called upon to serve as a catalyst for acceleration and technical-economic innovation in addition to generating a good number of polluting activities (use of computers, air travel for international conferences, etc.).
In order to overcome the ecological crisis, our societies will have no choice but to abandon the infinite growth of production and technology as the leitmotif of collective life and to assign thoughtful limits to these activities. To do this, the university will also have to get out of the logic of “always more” and question itself about the purposes it pursues, the resources it mobilizes, the type of research that she engages. Contrary to the managerial verticality specific to neoliberal governance, these limits will have to be discussed democratically, in universities as well as in society in general. This is how degrowth and democracy turn out to be two essential ideas to be associated with the establishment of free education. The upcoming election campaign represents an interesting opportunity for parties to propose policies that would build a free, democratic and pro-growth education system.