The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Canada’s progressive think tank, recently released a report on the cost of postsecondary education. The report highlights the many issues in the current system.
Since 1990, tuition fees have tripled. At the same time, other economic indicators such as inflation and minimum wage rose at a much slower rate. Further, the increase in tuition fees shows a great disparity between provinces. Ontario students, for example, pay several times that of Newfoundland and Labrador students.
Currently, the provinces have total control over the governance of postsecondary education. This has led to ineffective backend student-aid schemes, such as tax breaks, for which even the wealthy qualify. In the end, these schemes do not focus on getting in-need students into schools. These Band-Aid fixes contribute to the student debt crisis we are currently in, where the national student loan debt is over $15 billion.
This disparity is only one issue among many that might be tackled by a federal Ministry of Advanced Education. Canada is the only member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group of relatively wealthy countries, without a central oversight and directive body for postsecondary education.
The Canadian Federation of Students has called for a federal postsecondary education act for several decades. This demand is included in annual lobby work put on by the federation in representing students across the country, including those at Camosun College.