MODULATION OF TUITION FEES The Students Population’s Contribution to University Financing Adopted at the Member Associations’ Caucus on April 6, 2018 CAUCUS014-05 Modulation of Tuition Fees WRITING: Yasmine Jouhari, Permanent Researcher Catherine Grondin, Academic Affairs Coordinator REVISION: Catherine Grondin, Coordinator of Academic Affairs This document was presented and adopted on April 6, 2018 Member Associations’ Caucus The Quebec Student Union’s (QSU) mission is to defend the rights and interests of the student community, of its member associations, and of their members by promoting, protecting, and ameliorating the conditions of students and those of local and international communities. The QSU represents more than 79,000 university students from across Quebec. Its intention is to act as the primary interlocutor for all relevant actors at the different levels of government and with civil society organizations on matters relating to the accessibility of higher education and the living conditions of students. April 2018 2 CAUCUS014-05 Modulation of Tuition Fees TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 7 1. CONTEXT AND ISSUES ........................................................................ 9 1.1 MODULATION BY PROGRAM ............................................................................................ 10 1.2 MODULATION OF TUITION BY ANTICIPATED INCOME .......................................................... 13 1.3 EXISTING DIFFERENCES BETWEEN UNIVERSITIES ............................................................ 15 1.3.1 OBLIGATORY INSTITUTIONAL FEES .............................................................................. 16 1.3.2 NON-OBLIGATORY AUTOMATIC FEES .......................................................................... 17 2. ONTARIO: A CASE STUDY FOR THE MODULATION OF TUITION FEES ........................................................................................................ 18 3. CONSEQUENCES OF MODULATING TUITION FEES........................ 20 3.1 CHANGES TO THE SOCIOECONOMIC PROFILE OF STUDENTS ............................................. 20 3.2 STUDENT DEBT .............................................................................................................. 23 3.2.1 DATA ON STUDENT DEBT ............................................................................................ 23 3.2.2 STUDENT EMPLOYMENT .............................................................................................. 25 3.2.3 THE DROPOUT RATE ................................................................................................... 26 3.3 STUDENT FINANCIAL AID .................................................................................................. 28 3.4 CASTRO AND POITEVIN - SOCIAL AND PERSONAL BENEFITS ............................................. 29 3.5 PARTIAL CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................... 30 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................... 32 4. BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................... 33 April 2018 3 CAUCUS014-05 Modulation of Tuition Fees LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Modulated Tuition Fees for Undergraduate and Master’s students (2011-2012) ........... 11 Table 2: Average Tuition Fees for Full-Time Undergraduate Students in Canada and Average Student Debt, by Province in 2015 ......................................................................................... 24 Table 3: Employment Rates for Students in Canada and Quebec, as a percentage (%) ............ 25 LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: Impact of Average Debt on Canadian Students’ Decisions about the Future ................ 27 April 2018 4 CAUCUS014-05 Modulation of Tuition Fees List of Acronymsi AFE Student Financial Aid [Aide financière aux études] ASSÉ Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante CADEUL Confédération des associations d’étudiants et étudiantes de l’Université Laval CANO Non-obligatory Automatic Fees [Cotisation automatique non-obligatoire] CAQ Coalition Avenir Québec CASA Canadian Alliance of Student Associations CUSC Canadian University Survey Consortium FAÉCUM Fédération des associations étudiantes du campus de l’Université de Montréal FECQ Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec FEUQ Quebec Federation of University Students [Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec] FIO Obligatory Institutional Fees [Frais institutionnels obligatoires] MEES Ministry of Education and Higher Education OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development RMDH Per-capita Disposable Household Income [Revenu disponible des ménages par habitant (et par habitante)] QSU Quebec Student Union TaCeQ Table de concertation étudiante du Québec i Translator’s note: The common usage in Quebec is to maintain the original acronyms associated with French terms, even in English. For reference, the French term is provided in brackets in these cases. April 2018 5 CAUCUS014-05 Modulation of Tuition Fees RECOMMENDATIONS Recommendation 1 That the Quebec Student Union reaffirm that AFE’s role is to support students in financial need, not to act as a solution to the underfinancing of universities. Recommendation 2 That the government of Quebec preserve the single tuition rate for all Quebec universities. Recommendation 3 That the Quebec Student Union oppose all forms of modulation for tuition fees. Adopted Position That the government provide universities with a level of financing that at least covers annual increases to their system costs, every year. [Position Code] Adopted Position That the government of Quebec reinvest in higher education to offset budget cuts since 2014, to give universities the flexibility needed to fulfill their missions. [Position Code] Adopted Position That the government conduct a thorough review of the weighting for each family of programs included in the CLARDER, based on an assessment of the real costs for each type of activity. [Position Code] April 2018 6 CAUCUS014-05 Modulation of Tuition Fees INTRODUCTION University financing has undergone many changes throughout the years. In addition to the difficulty of coming to a consensus on a financing formula that satisfies all parties, one predominant question persists: what share of financing should students contribute? This question, and the issue of accessible education, is at the heart of the recent student crises, particularly the mobilization against the tuition fee hike in 2012.1 To settle the issue, the Marois government organized a Summit on Higher Education in the winter of 2013, where the idea of modulating tuition fees was presented. For many, the modulation of tuition fees seemed to be an ideal solution to both the underfinancing of universities and the fact that students oppose an across the board tuition fee increase. As such, just before the 2013 summit, the rector of Université de Montréal, Guy Breton, began speaking in favour of a new system governing tuition rates that would allow universities to charge a different amount for each program it offers. Known as modulation, he insisted that this system would resolve the recent cuts to university budgets (Chouinard 2013; Breton 2013a, 2013b et 2013c). The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) also strongly pushed for this option during the 2013 Higher Education Summit, where Francçois Legault called for tuition fees to be differentiated by field of study and by university (Corbeil 2013). At the time, the Liberal Party leadership candidate Raymond Bachand also argued for modulation (Dutrisac 2013). Modulation was again proposed in the Tremblay-Roy report (2014, 108-109), although just for international students. It rejected the system for Quebec’s own students, due to the dangers it posed to the accessibility of higher education and to the social diversity of students within programs. The active student federations at the time (the Quebec Federation of University Students [FEUQ], la Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec [FECQ], l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante [ASSÉ], and the Table de concertation étudiante du Québec [TaCeQ]) responded by unanimously denouncing this possibility (Marsan 2013), pointing to the dangers of this new system—especially in reducing the accessibility of education and social mobility. Modulation of tuition fees is a recurrent theme in Quebec’s political discussions and a financial orientation that 1 It is important to differentiate between “tuition fees” and “education costs” in this report. Tuition fees are an amount set by the government of Quebec, calculated by unit (normally called a “credit”). The government sets the cost of tuition each year in the Règles budgétaires et calculs de fonctionnement des universités du Québec. Education costs correspond to the total amount charged to students each semester. As such, they include every billable amount included in a semester (UEQ 2017a). This research focuses on the modulation of tuition fees, as it is discussing the issue of modulating the cost of a university credit. April 2018 7 CAUCUS014-05 Modulation of Tuition Fees seems to be shared among many of the actors at the periphery of higher education. This reality naturally gives rise to important and valid concern among students. Although the modulation of tuition fees was abandoned during the 2013 Summit on Higher Education and the CAQ also seems to have distanced