A Message to the Dean and FASC about Flat Fees
Here’s the message I drafted up just now. You can read more about the proposal and send your own message with the contact info for members of the Faculty of Arts and Science Council (FASC) listed on the UTSU website.
Dear Dean Gertler (meric.gertler@utoronto.ca),
Even though I should be writing papers right now, your mass-mailing inspired me to respond with this message and to include the members of the Faculty of Arts and Science Council. I served on FASC as a student representative in 2007-08 and the year before that on the Academic Appeals Board.
In my estimation, this is the single most regressive policy proposal I have seen since I began studying at UofT in 2005. One of the main themes in your message may be “not to worry, this change will not affect you”, but I cannot help but worry about the future of each and every Arts and Science student that would potentially be confronted with this severely inequitable fee structure. I believe that you have misjudged the impact that this change will have on student enrolment decisions, let alone on the “student experience” and access to UofT in general.
If you are under the impression, as indicated in your proposal, that for students with financial need “tuition fees are fully covered by government and/or University student aid”, you have been given the wrong impression and are shockingly out-of-touch with the lived reality of students. The average student leaves with a $24,000 debt sentence. Many students do not even qualify for OSAP: students from middle-income families, part-time students, students with prior debt, students without immigration status.
Further, if you believe that this change will not have a negative impact on students with financial need, you are once again mistaken. You must recognize that students take less than five courses because they lack the time and money to take a five course load. Students in this position would either be forced to pay exorbitantly more for less, be overburdened with an untenable amount of course work, or be pushed to drop down to part-time status, making themselves ineligible for OSAP. Each of these prospects serve to do irreperable harm to student engagement inside and outside of the classroom and to the accessibility of UofT.
Tuition fee increases are only stop-gap measures that take pressure off the government to fulfill its responsibility to adequately fund education, which we know has been chronically underfunded for years. Not only are tuition fee increases ineffective, but they are incredibly regressive as well – tuition fees are charged to all students regardless of their income.
I would like to end this message on a personal note. In my first year at UofT, I took five courses. I received an A- average, but the stress that I received as a result of this courseload was more than I could handle. I spent too much time shutting myself away from everyone in my life just to get assignments done. Since my first year, I have taken between 3.0 and 3.5 courses. It has meant that I will take five years, but it has also meant that I have been able to stay mentally healthy and get involved outside of classes, where most of my learning and development has taken place. For someone like me, a student on OSAP with a climbing debt load, this proposal serves only to cause undue stress or financial penalization, which in the end has the same impact.
If you can see me and my fellow students as students – as human beings with a right to access education – and not simply basic income units, I trust that you will vote down this proposal.
Sincerely,
Ryan
P.S. In case you have not heard, an incredible access program at UofT, the Transitional Year Programme is also being targeted for regressive changes. Rather than considering proposals that appear to penalize poor and marginalized students for being poor and marginalized, I submit that FASC’s time would be better utilized thinking about how to adopt principles of access and equity across the Faculty of Arts & Science. I would love for the next mass-mailing I receive from the Dean to be about the measures Arts and Science is taking towards advancing access and equity.
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