The Province of Nova Scotia and it’s publicly funded universities have reached their third Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) since 2004. In a perfect world, the MOU is an agreement that acts like the rulebook for universities to follow in order to receive their operating grant from the government. Like the previous agreements, it represents a three year commitment to working together, but unlike the other agreements, this one will not lead to a stronger university system. Having sat in on the negotiation process, I can tell you that it’s bad for Nova Scotia, it’s bad for our universities, and it’s bad for our students. To explain why, we need to look closely at the previous two agreements.
How we got to MOU III
The main purpose of the previous two Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) was to give universities sustainable and predictable levels of funding for three years at a time. This is common practise across Canada. In fact Nova Scotia had become considered a leader in these Multi-Year Funding Agreements. So much so, that ours had been the model for the development of a multi-year funding agreement in New Brunswick, one of the few provinces that didn’t have a long term funding plan for its universities.
When MOU I began, Nova Scotia was chronically underfunding its universities. The first two MOUs guaranteed steady increases in government funding for six years. Still, by the end of MOU II, Nova Scotia’s government was funding our universities at a per-student rate lower than most, if not all other provincial governments in Canada (the last year we have national data for was 2008, and at that time we were dead last). This year (2011-12) the universities have been in limbo, without a formal funding agreement, but received a reduction in their operating grants from government of about 14 million dollars.
Now comes MOU III, which makes no mention of funding levels at all, other than noting that they’re too high and universities will be given at least four months notice of future year’s funding levels before they take effect.
It’s a good time to remind ourselves that universities really only have two revenue sources to fund their general operations: government support and tuition fee revenue. They also get a fair chunk of research dollars and donor contributions, but those types of dollars are solicited with a specific purpose. Research money is project based, and universities typically don’t solicit their alumni asking for support to pay the heating bill, hire a new professor to teach first year English or to pay the saintly custodial staff that keep our schools so squeaky clean.
Tuition Regulation
Instinctively, as the purse strings of taxpayer funding are tightened, the universities have put pressure on the government to loosen regulation on tuition fees. You might recall that about this time last year, the Minister of Advanced Education announced that she would be enforcing a three per cent cap on tuition increases for all students, except for those in Law, Medicine and Dentistry who saw their tuition fees balloon from 6 – 14 %.
We first saw the minister weaken her stance on capped tuition increases when Dalhousie asked to increase international student differential fees by an additional seven per cent, on top of the planned three per cent increase. We reminded her that allowing this would be breaking her commitment to students, and she compromised by only allowing a 3.5 per cent increase.
In MOU III, announced today, we’re seeing some definite bad news for students and plenty more mixed messaging from government on tuition regulation. In Section 11, the government’s oft-stated commitment to keep tuition for “Nova Scotia students” at or below the national average is weakly repeated. In the same section we read that annual increases in tuition rates will be limited to three per cent “pending the outcome of the Tuition Policy Review.” Other language in the same section suggests that out of province students can expect to see the cap on their tuition lifted or loosened by 2013. In programs where students have tuition fees lower than those of programs at “comparable” institutions, you can expect the administration to be working hard as bricks to raise those fees to match “comparable” programs.
The universities have said that they want more “flexibility” on tuition fees. That’s not really true. They want flexibility on tuition fees as much as students do. They want flexibility in the upward direction, while we want flexibility in the downward direction.
The province has also cleared the way for universities to freely increase tuition fees as much as they please for students of Law, Medicine and Dentistry programs, where tuition and fees amount to tens of thousands of dollars per student annually. Students of upper income families are already overrepresented in the professional faculties. For example, a 2002 survey of Canadian Medical Schools demonstrated that almost half (43.5 per cent) of medical students came from neighbourhoods with median family incomes in the top quintile of Canadian earners. Deregulation of tuition fees in the professional programs will only further this trend.
International student fees have also been completely deregulated. When it comes to international student fees, some university presidents will say that tuition fees will only be increased “as much as the market will bear”. Meanwhile, other presidents will tell you that low international tuition fees prevent us from being competitive in the global market. You should read that last line again, there aren’t any typos in it.
For at least the next three years, international students should consider their wallets the only release valve that the universities will draw significant revenue increases from, for two reasons. First, compared to professional student tuition fees, international student fees are much easier divert to any area of the university that needs money. Second, not every school has professional students, but they’ve all got international students.
Accessibility
Language in each of the three MOUs would lead you to believe that accessibility has been a major priority of this government and the previous two governments that signed MOUs with the universities. The only MOU that really did anything about access was MOU II, which froze tuition fees and was administered alongside a tuition reduction program.
To be clear, this MOU is just plain bad for accessibility. Considered as a whole, this MOU and other policies introduced by this government only make university education less accessible. Of course observers are bound to say something like “Yes, but it could have been a lot worse.” That’s true. But compared to previous MOUs, this one is a lot worse. Things can always get worse.
Know this: while tuition prices will continue going up for the foreseeable future, the purchasing power of a student loan has steadily declined each year since 2006. Last year, over 2,200 students on student loans were an average of $3,054 short of what they needed to pay for tuition, books, rent and groceries. See Figure 1.
ANSSA has been asking the government to increase the cap on student assistance grants to ensure that the neediest students are able to afford to attend university.
The Innovation Fund
The core purpose of MOU III is “to achieve a System wide cost structure that is sustainable relative to the fiscal capacities of the Province”. To assist universities in achieving cost reductions, the province has offered an innovation fund of $25 million dollars to the universities, available over the next three years. The purpose of the fund is to assist universities in reducing their operating costs by 25 million dollars while maintaining quality before the fund disappears entirely at the end of 2014. The magnitude of the fund compared to operating grant cuts are demonstrated in Figure 2. Even before the rising costs of goods are considered (which won’t be fully covered by the allowed tuition increases), there is a significant shortfall. And in 2014, the innovation funding disappears, leaving what is surely, by that point, a greater than $25 Million shortfall between expenses and revenues.
This part of the plan is just plain wonky, it reminds me of an older sibling stealing my supper, chewing it up, swallowing some and spitting the rest of it out on my plate before telling me “It’s still good.”
Figure 2 - Innovation Funding vs. Operating Cuts
While I’m all ears if someone has a plan to enhance collaboration and eliminate redundancy from the university system, I’m doubtful that a 25 million dollar savings can be found while the system absorbs almost all of three years worth of inflationary costs.
The Change Mandate
The last major piece of this agreement is that the parties agree to “work actively over the three years of the agreement on a change mandate” which will address issues like accountability, funding formulas, tuition policy, research, affordability and accessibility. To be honest, we thought these issues would be directly addressed by the work of the MOU negotiating committee we’d been apart of. However, due to some serious foot-dragging, the issues were never addressed.
Our first reaction to this was “Great! When can we start?” Then came the news that students wouldn’t be a part of the “Partnership” of university and government officials charged with executing the initiatives.
We told the government and the universities that we, as student representatives, want to be part of those discussions, we want to be proactive contributors on government policy for the universities we fund. We don’t want to be forced into the position of being reactive, negative student groups, but if we’re not invited to the table, we’ve really got no choice. We reminded those around the table that while the Province contributes over 320 million dollars annually into the university system, so do students.
Some language around the partnership board guarantees that students will be kept abreast of the work plans of the MOU, and that we will be invited to give input on specific issues and working groups. The sentiment was clear, however, that there were certain issues for which the government and universities were not interested in having us around the table.
This isn’t surprising, however, as soon into the process that lead to this MOU we were told that, while we would be invited to all meetings of the MOU negotiating committee, we would not be invited to the meetings of the working groups comprised of government staffers and university executives.
Wrap Up
So, to sum up:
Since 2004, Nova Scotia has made stepwise improvements by using MOUs I & II to increase funding to a chronically underfunded university system, and eventually freeze and reduce tuition. Over the next three years the government will cut funding by about $25 Million dollars annually, while the expenses facing the university system will grow by $30 Million each year. Tuition will “sort of” be capped at three per cent for most students, but no ones going to betting their MLA pension on it. International students will pay oodles more than they ever did for tuition, and some presidents think that will make us a more attractive place to study. Out of province students will likely soon face a similar, but not so extreme version of what international students will face. While most universities are busy shaking students by the ankles to get every last penny from their pockets, their presidents will be attending regular closed door meetings with government, most likely asking for looser regulations on shaking students by the ankles.
Useful Links:
MOU I (2004) * MOU II (2008) * MOU III (2012)
ANSSA’s Original Submission to the MOU Negotiating Committee * ANSSA’s Response to Draft MOU *
The Project: To produce a report assessing tuition and university funding models around the world and determine which of these models will work best for Nova Scotia. Free Tuition? High Tuition, High Aid? The Ivy League? Status quo? Our own unique brand?
The Team: A steering committee of students and researchers from faculties of Education, Economics, Public Policy and Political Science (or others) in universities across Nova Scotia.
The Invitation: We’re seeking interested students and faculty from across Nova Scotia to be part of our steering committee charged with the research and report writing.
The Timeline: We intend to have a complete report by Spring 2012.
The Value: Take a leading role in a province wide research project. Create a product that will influence public policy around higher education in Nova Scotia. Shape the university system you are already a part of.
Who We Are: The Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations (ANSSA) is a not-for-profit, non-partisan advocacy group representing the interests of over 80% of Nova Scotian university students. We are over 35,000 students and the largest student organization in Atlantic Canada.
I’m Interested! What Next? Send us an email (ed@anssa.ca) with a brief description of who you are, why you are interested in being a part of our steering committee, and what experience would make you a good team member.
Originally published in the Dalhousie Gazette on January 28, 2011
When you are on the executive of a university student union, invitations to participate in decision-making with the university come to you. During my time as vice-president (education) for the Dalhousie Student Union, the number of invitations we received was overwhelming, and many of them for quite trite decisions.
I recall getting one invitation to join the hiring committee for a position as benign-sounding as head groundskeeper. Universities, in my experience, are hyper-aware of the importance of inviting students and other stakeholders to the decision making table, and do so to a nauseating degree.
Our provincial government, on the other hand, couldn’t be more unlike our universities. Advocates for education in Nova Scotia know this all too well. The government has asked the school boards to detail what a 22 per cent funding cut would look like, and the school boards responded. Judging from the media discourse, the discussion has stopped there.
School boards have understandably decided to share the results of their cost cutting scenarios with both the government and the public. In brief, they’ve said that the result would mean 70 schools closing and 4000 jobs disappearing across the province.
Nova Scotia Premier Darrel Dexter has snapped back, saying “it’s terribly irresponsible to be creating the kind of fear that they are creating by bringing forward these scenarios.”
In other words, this was either meant to be an internal conversation that the government wasn’t ready to bring to the public, or it was meant to be a public relations tactic that has evidently backfired, and they likely wish everyone would stop talking about it. Regardless of their intent, the government’s inability to bring their concerns to the public in an honest manner is just bad politics.
University administrations have just completed a similar exercise—albeit much less public—where they’ve been asked to demonstrate what the effect of an undisclosed drop in funding to the post-secondary system would be. Not surprisingly, students were not invited to partake in this discussion.
When asked about school boards, university funding, or tuition in the legislature, the government’s response is unsatisfactory. They’ve given dodgy responses to serious questions, while they are evidently giving serious consideration to dodgy proposals like increasing tuition.
To a certain degree, this is how politics works, and it’s how politics have always worked. A government knows they have to make a tough decision, so they leak some information publicly that suggests the actual decision might be worse than whatever they have planned. Then, rather than announce the slightly less alarming decisions when they’re actually made, they wait until the last minute and announce them all at once (in our case, probably on budget day), because it’s better to have one bad news day than many.
Unfortunately, in the case of education funding, this drawn-out process is hurting the very citizens the government is elected to serve. Students are unable to plan for the costs that will be expected of them next year, not knowing how much tuition will be. School boards and university administrations are forced to spend more time and energy securing adequate funding for next year’s operations and devote less attention to improving the quality of education we’re all paying for. Teachers, faculty and other school employees are concerned about job security, and smart ones are looking for employment elsewhere.
Perhaps the situation won’t be as dire as the letters to the editor, town hall meetings and alarmist presentations would have us believe. But, without a genuine discussion on education funding, we’ll never know.
Mark Coffin is Executive Director of the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations (ANSSA), an organization representing the interests of over 35,000 university students in Nova Scotia. Mark is a student in the Faculty of Education at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, and a Dal alumnus.
Originally published in the Dalhousie Gazette on December 3 2010
“Students need to be invited to the table during the negotiation of the next university funding agreement.” This is the message the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations (ANSSA) has been sharing with every MLA, minister and public servant we’ve met with over the past two years. It was one of the guiding principles used to help create the current funding agreement under the leadership of then-Education Minister, and now Progressive Conservative Education Critic, Karen Casey. It is also the same message that Liberal Education Critic Kelly Regan expressed to the Minister of Education, Marilyn More, last Tuesday in the legislature.
So why are students being kept out of discussions about the negotiation of the next funding agreement? It would appear that the government is more interested in working with economist Tim O’Neill than working with students.
Between January and September, stakeholders across the higher education sector waited patiently for O’Neill to complete his government commissioned review of the universities. The result: a call for unregulated increases in tuition fees alongside equally unpopular proposals for merging schools.
Student groups have spoken out against the recommendations. All of the faculty unions in the province have given the report a failing grade. Even some university administrations, such as those at Cape Breton University and Mount Saint Vincent University, have expressed opposition to O’Neill’s plans for tuition.
Our government said they would listen to stakeholders with genuine interest. Instead, the Dexter government has gone behind our backs and rehired O’Neill to sell the findings from his report to the public, while advising the province on negotiating a new funding agreement with the universities.
According to a freedom of information request filed by ANSSA, O’Neill’s extended contract was signed at the end of July, almost two months prior to the public release of his report—long before stakeholders were given an opportunity to provide feedback. He will continue to receive compensation for his work until mid-December (unless, of course, Premier Darryl Dexter decides to hire him again).
Why is government continuing to seek counsel from the author of a report that was near universally decried? According to Dexter, it’s because he likes what O’Neill has to say. “We value the work that he’s done,” he noted in the legislature last week. “We hope he will continue to provide the good advice.”
Dexter has done anything but distance himself from O’Neill’s recommendations on tuition by appointing him as advisor to the team that will set the next number of years worth of tuition policy for the province. O’Neill’s continued employment can only be viewed as the government’s silent adoption of his recommendation to increase tuition.
O’Neill appears to have taken the spot formerly filled by elected student leaders. For over a year, elected student leaders have been requesting detailed information on how students will be involved in the creation of the next university funding agreement. When asked about the issue in Question Period last Wednesday, Minister More gave no indication that students would be a part of the group negotiating the next agreement [Time warp edit: The minister has since committed to having both university presidents and students "at the table" for these discussions]. Meanwhile, university presidents have already received their invitation to the discussions.
If you are angry and frustrated with the government’s oppositional attitude towards students and its alliance with economists who argue for increased fees, speak out!
Send a pre-written letter to your MLA by visiting ANSSA’s campaign site at TappedOut.ca.Phone or visit your MLA. Call the Minister of Education. Most importantly, get in touch with your student union to learn how you can help out with on-the-ground campaigns. If you don’t speak up, they’ll think you don’t care.
Mark Coffin is Executive Director of the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations (ANSSA), an organization representing the interests of over 35,000 university students in Nova Scotia. Mark is a student in the Faculty of Education at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, and a Dal alumnus.
Can’t afford school? Don’t worry about it. Anxious about your debt after graduation? Just keep spending. Not sure if you’ll be employable when you graduate? Relax, young scholar. Economist Tim O’Neill has a plan: higher tuitions for all, more student aid for some, and the merging of some landmark universities. All the while ignoring the fact that very few of us can afford to stay here after we graduate. O’Neill has proposed a patchwork solution of loosely tied coverings over the sores of a much deeper ailment affecting our university system: chronic underfunding.
A recent government marketing campaign branded Nova Scotia the “University Capital of Canada.” If we look to recent history, or to the O’Neillian future, a more apt label might be “Tuition Capital of Canada.” For all but two years of the last two decades, students in Nova Scotia have paid the highest tuition in Canada. While the average tuition here is now $5,495. To put this into perspective, when O’Neill did his first degree at Saint Francis Xavier University in the 1970s, tuition hovered at just over seven hundred dollars.
O’Neill proposes a high-tuition, high-aid model, where tuition increases and student assistance dollars (either grants or loans) also increase to protect the neediest students, arguing this to be a more equitable model than the current one. It might be, but he offers few specifics on how much funding is needed to bring our student assistance system up to par. His explicit recommendation for more support for low-income students is much needed, but, he more or less ignores middle- income families, supposedly assuming they will be able to handle further tuition increases or more debt. He also ignores the fact that enrolment will only further decline once some of the thirteen thousand students from other provinces realize that they won’t be getting the same student-aid prescription students from Nova Scotia will receive to make the pain of a tuition hike bearable.
These recommendations come just as we have begun to feel some relief through the near-completion of the last government’s pledge to reduce tuitions to the national average and protect students with a three-year fee freeze. The university system still has a half-billion dollar infrastructure deficit accumulated through two decades of underfunding. Faculty hiring freezes still remain as scars of this underfunding. Now, as the province ambitiously tries to eliminate the provincial deficit, the unspoken solution from O’Neill seems to be this: trade the provincial debt for student debt.
Universities have two main options to support their thinly stretched budgets: tuition fees and government funding. If either piece of the pie shrinks, the other must grow. If government funding drops and tuitions increase, students will be forced turn increasingly to debt to fund their education as the provincial deficit shrinks.
When the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations surveyed over 1,500 of our members last year, we learned that upper year students with over $26,000 in debt would be 20 per cent more likely to leave Nova Scotia after graduation than their classmates without debt. The most recent statistics from the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation indicate that 69 per cent of all students in Nova Scotia have an average of $31, 900 in debt upon graduation from an undergraduate degree. Those numbers don’t point towards the population growth, economic growth or tax revenue growth that O’Neill suggests we need before we consider increasing university funding.
While O’Neill notes that holders of a bachelor’s degree will earn a $750,000 premium over those with a high school diploma, he forgot to mention that for the province to reap the benefits of a highly educated population, we need to keep our graduates here. Simply put: the latest research suggests that we graduates consume far fewer government services, and would contribute far more tax dollars to support our aging parents, grandparents, and fellow Nova Scotians in need. Debt pushes us away. Student debt isn’t good for students, and it isn’t much good for Nova Scotia either. Our government dishes out more debt per-student than any other province in Canada. Our government would be wise to maintain funding where it needs to be to keep tuitions frozen, to keep our universities competitive and to reduce debt by implementing O’Neill’s recommendation for more grants.
Mark Coffin is Executive Director of the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations (ANSSA), an organization representing the interests of over 35,000 university students in Nova Scotia. Mark is a student in the Faculty of Education at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, and a Dal alumnus.
