Your opinion on making college/university cheaper/more affordable or free?

[wild goose chase]

The wealth of a young adult’s extended family should make no difference. There is no legal obligation to contribute to your adult children’s post-secondary education. My father, with whom I lived full time, had a high six figure salary in the 1980s and 90s, but didn’t give me a dime for university. I managed to get OSAP, but it was very tough due to my dad’s income.

On the other hand, young adults from (per RevCanada) poor families may themselves have money through savings, inheritance, financial gifts.

So, make university free for anyone in the programs the state needs workers. Make the entrance exams tough as hell. That’s what the Germans do. My friend is a doctor ( pediatric rheumatologist ) in Munich and never paid a dime for schooling. The trade off is that as a government employee he only makes about Euro 80-90k when his equals at Toronto Sick Kids make four times that (necessary to paying down their student debt).

Well, making university cheap/free but selective or difficult to get into is another tack. I guess sometimes many people find it hard to square the fact that education has to be for the masses and also free/cheap. But the thing is society is still set up so that a university degree feels just like what high school used to be generations back, and I find the idea of cutting back requirements for university degrees in jobs (in some cases, jobs wanting a degree but not caring what it is in) is something that is probably unlikely to happen, given that employers can get away with selecting people with degrees from such a large pool now.

 

[kEiThZ]

The trade off is that as a government employee he only makes about Euro 80-90k when his equals at Toronto Sick Kids make four times that (necessary to paying down their student debt).

We can't ignore the fact that we live in Canada, beside an economic superpower that we are linguistically and culturally similar to. If we end up with anything more than 20-30% pay differential with our southern neighbours because of free schooling, turnover in our healthcare system would skyrocket.

 

[leanelissen]

I come from a country where university is affordable, so my opinion is biased. ?
There are disadvantages and advantages.
University has become mainstream and naturally young people are heading towards it without getting what they want to do. So the failure rate is higher! But on the other hand, students shouldn't have to go into debt to study and get the job they want.
I think it's sad to start life with debts.

 

[Northern Light]

I come from a country where university is affordable, so my opinion is biased. ?
There are disadvantages and advantages.
University has become mainstream and naturally young people are heading towards it without getting what they want to do. So the failure rate is higher! But on the other hand, students shouldn't have to go into debt to study and get the job they want.
I think it's sad to start life with debts.

The Federal Green Party had free tuition in their last platform.

When you disentangle that from student debt forgiveness.........it looks like they estimate a longer-term cost in the range of 9.5B per year.

While they estimated that cancelling the RESP as a logical offset would save about 1.5B per year.

I think an entirely reasonable place to start would be cancelling RESPs and putting the 1.5B in savings directly into tuition reduction.

On its face, that would represent a cut to tuition of around 16%

However, if you also assume a massive curtailing of student loan programs, bursaries and scholarships...........

I think you can probably finance about a 70% tuition reduction without raising taxes.

I would regig that slightly.........

By cutting graduate tuition to the same as undergrad (so a much deeper cut).......with the undergrad cut likely being around 55%.

So a target tuition of $2,400 per year for university; and likely around $1,400 for Community College.

We could go all the way to free, but that likely does mean new tax revenue. Separate discussion.

The above is low-hanging fruit.

 

[SunriseChampion]

I think it's sad to start life with debts.

It is indeed. Thankfully nobody does.

 

[lenaitch]

It is indeed. Thankfully nobody does.

I see what you did there.