I am writing this on the afternoon of February
7th, 2007. At this very moment (apparently), thousands of
students from around the city and the province are gathered at
Queen’s Park to demand a reduction in tuition fees. I am not with
them. In fact, the only reason I’m not in class right now,
offering passive resistance to the bullshit “academic
amnesty” granted by the faculty so that students can attend this
little circle-jerk, is that I don’t have any class to go to...
and it’s the first time I’m genuinely pissed off about
that. I think that tuition fees are far too low, and have to be raised
now.
No fucking around this time: I know
I’ve written a whole lot of humour and
stuff for this paper, including some satire that has upset some people
who couldn’t see it for what it was (you wouldn’t believe
how many people can be genuinely upset by the thought of physically
assaulting an abstract mathematical function). This, though, is
serious. Undergraduate tuition fees in this country are, by and large,
far too low, and morally ought to go up. The fact that no one seems to
question why students should
want a tuition decrease,
coupled with the fact that I have never seen a half-decent argument in favour of this recent demand for lower tuition, tells
me that this is a “movement” being directed by self-interested, classist members of the bourgeoisie, against rational but largely
well-meaning people who simply haven’t thought much about the
matter.
Here’s how this is going to work:
first, I’ll tell you what values and moral considerations are
driving my beliefs on the matter, and why they’re appropriate.
Second, I’ll tell you why tuition fees themselves ought to go up,
or at least ought not to go
down. Third, I’ll offer what I think is a far better
counter-proposal, which I have considered long and hard.
I am operating from a perspective of
equality, particularly across class lines. The fact is that we live in
a severely class-stratified society, where the upper and professional
classes receive a huge amount of prestige and wealth, despite the fact
that they work no harder than the lower classes, and likely less hard.
It is true that these class boundaries are highly permeable when viewed
intergenerationally: just because your
parents are of a certain class, it doesn’t mean that you will
necessarily spend your whole life as a member of that class, and the
same goes for your children. Still, these class boundaries do exist, and they are something
which all of society should work against, in the interest of equality.
Now, it’s easy to understand why the upper classes might not
support the elimination of class boundaries, since such action would be
against their self-interest. Still, that does not change the morality of eliminating class
difference, and it certainly doesn’t mean that the upper classes
are in any way justified in demanding any entitlement or right to
occupy the high social position that they do.
Furthermore, in our society, level of
education is enormously tied to class and social status: while
it’s true that not all university graduates go on to become
members of the upper classes, it is true that virtually all members of
the upper-classes in the twenty-first century (barring some massive,
revolutionary social change) will have a high level of education,
meaning a bachelor’s degree or higher. A good education opens the
door to becoming a member of the cultural and economic elite in our
society; it can be viewed as a necessary
condition for success in our society, even if it is not always a sufficient condition.
The question, then, is this: why should the position of some
within the cultural and economic elite be
assured by the rest of the public? The way things stand, it would be
impossible for all citizens to be educated at the university level: the
space simply isn’t there, and the economy remains dependent to a
certain degree upon members of the lower class who don’t get a university education. I sincerely hope
that this will one day change, and that virtually all people will
achieve a high level of education, just as virtually all people now
achieve a high school education, because I think an educated citizenry
is a social good in and of itself. The fact
is, though, that this is currently impossible, and until it is
possible, a university education is the way for some to climb higher
than others on the social ladder, achieving higher income levels and
better quality of life for the
rest of their lives. Shouldn’t they at least have to pay some
nominal fee for this privilege?
Really, now; we’re talking about people
living better than others, by
almost any measure one might use, and those assholes organizing this
bullshit down at Queen’s Park want such an entitlement at no cost to themselves,
but at a huge cost to the government, which ought to be working to reduce class differences, not enforce them for free! What
could possibly make that fair? It simply is the case that until it is
possible (and feasible) to educate all members of society, those whose
education grants them a better lot in life ought to pay for it. Now,
don’t get me wrong; when, one day, everyone does have the
opportunity to achieve a higher education of their choice, it should be
free and universally assured. But until that day, no friggin’ dice!
Now, you have to understand something: I am
not some right-wing psychopath. I’m no objectivist or
libertarian, and I in fact think that Ayn
Rand’s grave ought to be defaced and her corpse violated. Nor am
I a spoiled rich kid whose had everything
handed to him his whole life. I am from Kapuskasing, Ontario, in the industrial
isolation of Northern Ontario. My dad has worked as a
millwright in a godforsaken paper mill for forty long years, just as his father did before him, and
just as my younger brother might one day soon. My mother, a Northern
Ontario Francophone, has ten brothers and sisters, and spent much of
her early life just above subsistence level. I am the first, and
currently the only, member of my family to go to university. Yes, my
parents wanted nothing more than for me to never have to work a single
day in a paper mill, and so they helped me pay for my education, but I
still have tens of thousands of dollars in outstanding student loans.
What I recognize, though, is that my ascent to a class above them should not come cheap (let alone
free), and I can’t bear
the thought of myself, let alone people who’ve never had to work
a day in their lives (I mean real
work, digging ditches or mining ore or pulping trees), living well
for the rest of our lives on the backs of the hardworking poor. On the
backs not of some abstract
notion of “the masses,” but of my parents, my
grandparents, my proud
lumberjack uncles and aunts, and my
own brother. That’s why I
have to support what I know is right, and not just what is best for me;
others can have their own reasons, but that doesn’t change
what’s right and wrong here. No one on this earth is better or
more deserving than me, and no one is better than any of them either,
and it is unacceptable for the elites (likely including myself soon) of
our society to demand economic entitlement from those people who will
never receive any of the benefits. Change society first; then we’ll talk about changing tuition
increases.
So, if we shouldn’t lower tuition fees,
what should we do? After all, even given all I’ve said, it still
seems unfair that some people get to go to university purely because
they can afford it, while others are denied the opportunity because
they cannot. Sure, it might not be possible for everybody to get a higher education these days, but I think
it should be possible for anybody
to get one. So here’s a solution: raise tuition fees, or at the
very least keep them no lower than the “nominal fee” rates
they’re already at, but vastly increase the number and amount of
student loans given out. “Oh, but you’ll give people much
higher debt when they come out of school! They’ll have to spend
years paying it off!” That’s right, they will. That should
be part of the cost of having a higher income and quality of life as a
result of higher education. “But what about those people who don’t get good jobs,
higher incomes, etc., when they get out of school?!?” It would be
entirely acceptable to make the terms of repayment more generous and
accommodating, so that those with lower incomes or without work will
have lower interest, more time before repayment and interest begin,
whatever they need. That’s plenty fair to those people, and it
makes sure that what’s being paid for is not the education itself (which is a
good thing, remember), but the high
social status which does not always come with education but which does basically require
education. So yes, equal access for all, but failing that, equal access
for each, and in that case,
in the form of loans, not grants. There should be at least
some small economic sacrifice in return for the vast economic boost the
highly educated stand to gain. If we are really serious about reducing
class differences, we should think about it first, and not just follow
blindly to rally behind the spoiled bourgeoisie because Kardinal Offishall will
be there.
