tuition

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Ontario’s 2016 budget was announced on Thursday. In contrast to the newly applied progressive veneer of the current Liberal brand, the budget was actually an austerity budget. The funding for infrastructure all comes from other parts of the public purse, increases to regressive flat taxes, and delayed spending on much needed social programs. Reallocating public service funds to infrastructure investments will not give the province the advertised economic boost because every infrastructure job and investment will be offset by job losses and cutbacks to other public services.

There was a brighter spot in the budget and the mainstream media, looking for positive stories, latched onto it: a grants program to fund current tuition fees for students from low-income families. The low-income cut-off in Ontario is about $37,000 to $44,000 for a family of three to four (two wage earners and children).

As semi-regulated tuition fees have surged in recent years, many studies have shown low-income people are being squeezed out of the university and college system. So, the government finally listened to the Canadian Federation of Students and followed the lead of the federal government by overhauling its primary system of financial assistance for post-secondary education. Instead of having to spend years paying off large loans, students from low-income families will now be provided with upfront grants to pay for their education.

The Canadian Federation of Students — Ontario was right to celebrate the more progressive redistribution of grant and loan financing. Needs-based, upfront grants are a good thing and the CFS has been the leading voice on this ask for as long as it has been around. This announcement shows that strong analysis, democratic mobilization, and persistent principled advocacy can push government to change its approach.

However, this more progressive reallocation of student financial assistance is only a small step towards the ultimate goal of universally accessible, high-quality post-secondary education. And, for many students and families, this step, while moving in the right direction, is still not enough.

While this victory should be celebrated, here are some facts that should drive activists to double-down and take this opportunity to push further.

There is almost no new money in the budget for university and colleges (only $100 million in 2017-2018 and none for the current year). Infrastructure funding is vaguely defined in the budget, so there is uncertainty whether any has been earmarked for maintenance of post-secondary institutions. In fact, if anything, it looks like there may be an actual decrease in funding for 2017.

This “new” grants system is basically a redistribution of current grant money to lower income families. While this is more progressive (and honest) than the “30 per cent Off” nonsense the Liberals introduced a few years ago, it is not new money.

How does the new system work? Money from the current regressive financing model that supported students from middle class families is redistributed to families that earn under $40,000 per year. Note that these grants end up being larger because the group that qualifies to receive them ends up being a smaller group than under the old system. This is mainly because to receive the largest amount from the new grant requires the combined income of all members of the student’s family to be less than $40,000/year (not $50,000/year as claimed by Liberal propaganda). Currently, only 10 pwr cent of students in university and college meet this criteria.

So, a student who comes from a middle-income family earning between $40,000 and $80,000 a year, will receive diminishing support as their parent’s income increases. But, even a family earning just over minimum wage may not qualify for the full tuition fee grant. A two-parent household with both parents working full-time at minimum wage jobs would bring in around $44,000 per year.

Even the Liberal government explanation of the new funding model shows low-income students are still expected to pay $3,000 of their own money — in addition to loans to cover education-related expenses. While base tuition fees might be covered, increasing and often unregulated ancillary fees (for campus services and developments unrelated to tuition) will continue to keep university out-of-reach for many low-income students.

Current tuition fee regulation is set to expire in 2017. If the government is allowed to deregulate tuition fees they will sky-rocket and the impact of this low-income grant will be dramatically reduced. This is where students and community activists should take our next stand and make a difference: convince the government to maintain the cap on tuition fees and ensure the grant is actually able to have an impact for more than just one year.

Without a tuition fee freeze or reduction, there will be an increase in the commodification of university and college education and an increase in the “student as consumer” mentality. This undermines the public university system and quality of education and research. More of the university budget will depend on private fees — putting pressure on universities to target money-making programs and marketize their programs. The result will be cuts to programs like Women’s Studies (recently dropped by the University of Guelph) — that are important areas of study, but are ones that bring in less money to universities than business and technology programs.

Since the budget does not increase funding to university or college institutions, austerity on campuses will continue and probably increase. This means reduced quality of jobs and lower quality learning environments.

Beyond education, there are cuts to all other public services and an increase in a flat tax on gas (remember, cap and trade is the right-wing libertarian solution to carbon pricing and hurts working people more than other carbon pricing schemes). These new regressive taxes will increase costs for low-income families. On the other hand, large corporations have been given a year cap-free to “adjust.”

On top of the increased costs, the price on carbon is only set to top-out at $17 a tonne — well below the $35 a tonne that has been demonstrated to actually impact consumer behaviour. There is also no support for the impacts this will have on low-income families. So, the cap and trade system is mostly just a flat tax, not an environmental program.

As a comparison, the amount of money put into supporting public assisted housing and post-secondary education is about the same as that which is being used to subsidize the province’s horse-racing tracks. That is a hint about how out of whack the Liberal’s priorities are. The $1.2 billion dollars (at least) the Toronto Community Housing needs next year to maintain its current stock of housing has not been covered. So much for supporting low-income families.

Overall, this is an austerity, privatization budget where regressive taxes and cuts to public services pay for private infrastructure projects and a couple of programmes that will generate good PR.

 

Expansion of the Canadian Pension Plan, but only if we keep pushing

The federal and provincial Liberal governments campaigned on the promise that they were the parties to expand socialized retirement security through the expansion of the Canadian Pension Plan and/or a provincial equivalent. Unfortunately, given the loud voices of some rather small right-wing groups, these plans have been delayed. These irrational groups are pointing to the lagging economy as the reason to delay the implementation of these plans because the “tax burden” is too high. Regular people need to make their voices heard that exactly the opposite is true.

The burden on individuals and families to support their elders privately is often too much and has resulted in an up-tick in levels of poverty in the older generations for the first time in 80 years. The only fair and sustainable way to deal with this situation is to invest in the future (our own) and make sure that the resources are there when we approach the age when we can no longer work.

The promise of pension reform — finally

 

Leaked Documents show Newfoundland and Labrador Liberals Privatization Plans

The new NL Liberal government is set to drive a full privatization plan that will gut needed public services in the province. Leaked documents show plans that far surpass the election platform the Liberals campaigned on, including massive increases in outsourcing, public-private partnerships, cuts to health services, and substantial asset sales.

CUPE NL calls leaked government document on privatization a “five-alarm fire” for public services

 

Communities hold sessions on privatization

Communities around Ontario have been organizing sessions to talk about the continued failure of privatization and the threat it poses to communities. The Liberals in Ontario have been on a privatization spree since the premier appointed privatization czar Ed Clark. They have been eagerly trying new models of replacing universal services with costly and privatized fee-for-service models. Communities are under increasing pressure because of the slow growth of the economy and are struggling to deal with cuts to services and increased costs due to insufficient investment (as well as the increased costs resulting from privatization).

• “No admittance except on business”: How P3s are produced and the secret of their profit making

 

B.C. Liberals hire Harper Tories

When is a Liberal really just a Conservative in a red t-shirt? In British Columbia (and a lot of other places too). The B.C. Liberals have hired 12 high-ranking political staff from Harper’s Conservative Party into prominent policy positions. While it became obvious to those watching the previous election that the politics of the B.C. Liberals were more aligned with the Federal Conservatives, this complete acceptance and integration of Harper ideologues into the B.C. government should be cause for concern.

B.C. Liberals hire 12 ousted federal and Alberta Conservatives, which could give province a ‘Harper tone’

 

New right-wing Argentinian government destroying public services

Public services in Argentina are being destroyed through massive cuts. Thousands have lost their jobs as part of a drive to collapse the social welfare state and make a gift of public institutions to the wealthy elite. Workers have responded with some of the largest strikes Argentina has seen since dictatorship.

The lay offs are part of a two-stage attack on the social economy in Argentina to make way for massive tax-cuts for the rich. It is a plan we have seen throughout the history of Latin America, where the right-wing opposition campaigns as a centre-left alternative to the socialist governments, but when it gains power, it enacts a far-right program.

Thousands of Argentine Workers Strike Against Macri Nationwide

 

Digital back-door through other means

The fight between government surveillance overreach and the interests of technology firms is missing one crucial part: regular people. While it is interesting to watch how Apple is trying to protect their data from overzealous state police, we need to be aware that there is more at stake than just one or two instances of back-doors that expose private data. We cannot rely on corporations — who in the end do not have our interests at heart — to fight our data privacy battles for us. If those corporations lose or are forced to give into police state pressures then it becomes that much harder for citizens to keep ownership of the data that increasingly impact our relationships.

It is becoming very clear that citizens need broad legal protections from both government and corporate entities. Rights to privacy are not just about precedent-setting access to this or that mobile phone used by a terrorist. This is a conversation about how we, as a society, regulate our relationships.

Court documents detail 13 “similar” Apple devices under FBI investigation

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