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Laurentian student leader: Tories' tuition cut means more debt, less access for low-income learners

Positive effects of 10% tuition fee cut 'cancelled out' by canning previous Liberals' free tuition program 
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The benefits of a 10-per-cent, across-the-board cut in post-secondary tuition fees in Ontario announced by the provincial Tories on Thursday are cancelled out by a simultaneous announcement that low-income students will no longer receive free tuition, a Laurentian University student leader told Sudbury.com.

“The changes to OSAP are really unfortunate, because a lot of students in Ontario rely on those things,” Students' General Association (SGA) president Tommi-Lee Gauthier.

“The changes they made make it harder for students to get help. Lower income students will not receive grants to cover their tuition like they did with the 2017-18 levels, and students are going to graduate with more debt. 

“It's just going to be much harder to pay off.”

She also said tuition fee cuts are great in theory, but making universities responsible for funding them is problematic, as the money is going to have to come for somewhere.

“If they tell universities that they have to lower their tuition fees by 10 per cent, that money still needs to come from somewhere,” Gauthier said. “It's either other services at the university and somewhere else out of somebody's pocket.”

Training, Colleges and Universities Minister Merrilee Fullerton revealed the changes Thursday, saying Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) grants had become “unsustainable.”

In 2017, the previous Ontario Liberal government made tuition for low-income students free, increasing grants offered under OSAP.

The auditor general found last month that costs for that program jumped by 25 per cent and warned it could grow to $2 billion annually by 2020-21.

Under the new plan, low-income students will now only have their tuition partly covered by OSAP grants — they'll have to repay the balance upon graduation.

At the same time, Fullerton announced tuition fees are being cut by 10 per cent for the 2019-2020 year, and frozen the following year. Colleges and universities will be expected to absorb the loss in revenue, Fullerton said.

Student unions are fighting back against the changes. 

The Canadian Federation of Students – Ontario held an “emergency rally” at Queen's Park Jan. 18, while a local event called “Sudbury Rally for University/College Students and Workers” is planned for Jan. 25.

Besides the OSAP changes, the group is also angry about Fullerton’s announcement Thursday that students will be able to opt out of some of the fees funding services campus services administered by student unions.

"These fees often get allocated to services students do not use or to support organizations they do not support," said Fullerton.

She said each institution will be tasked with deciding which of these additional fees are deemed essential and which students can choose to bypass.

Gauthier, who attended Friday's rally in Toronto, said members of the SGA at Laurentian pay about $1,100 in these fees per student year. 

Only $127 goes to the student union itself, while $114 goes to fund the building of a new student centre (students voted in favour of the levy in 2014), $196 to a bus pass, $260 to health and dental benefits and smaller amounts to miscellaneous services including for LGBT and aboriginal students.

She said she's not surprised the government is going after student unions. 

“If you think about it, it's quite smart,” Gauthier said, adding that student unions such as the SGA and the CFS are the ones that will be pushing back against the government cuts. 

“What this is doing is cutting the groups that will push back on this change right at the knees so that it will be easier for the government to make further changes,” she said.

In terms of the impact of the 10 per cent tuition fee cut on universities, Fullerton did announce a contingency fund for northern schools more impacted in part because they have fewer international students paying high tuition fees.

In a statement, Laurentian said it “welcomed” Fullerton’s commitment to create the northern fund.

The university said it also said it supports decisions such as the tuition cut that increase access to post-secondary education, but like other northern universities, it is in a difficult financial situation.

Costs related to higher education in the North are higher, and for the last decade, grants to support northern students have been frozen, while overall operating grants have declined with inflation. 

Collège Boréal president Daniel Giroux said the province's colleges are left with a lot of questions, and will be seeking clarity.

He said he doesn't have an exact number of what this announcement will cost the college, but 10 per cent would put it between $500,000 and $800,000.

For its part, Cambrian College is in a good financial position, and can likely absorb the tuition cut, said college spokesperson Dan Lessard.

“We've had strong enrollment over the last couple of years — our two best years of enrollment ever,” he said. 

“We have momentum as a college. We're in good financial position because we've been very prudent in the way that we've managed our funds. So we feel that we're going to be able to manage this reduction in tuition.”

-With files from Canadian Press


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