On November 17, students, campus workers, faculty, and allies gathered at Queen’s Park in Toronto to mark International Students’ Day and to demonstrate for free education.
The event was organized by the Toronto Student Mobilisation Committee. The committee brings together students and campus workers from different institutions across the city to mobilize for free education and labour and student rights.
International Students’ Day commemorates the day when the Nazis stormed the University of Prague in 1939, executed nine students and professors, sent over 1,200 students to the concentration camps, and closed all universities in Czechoslovakia. After the war, the International Union of Students worked to make November 17 an international annual commemoration and a day of action for the rights of students and the right to education.
Below is the speech of YCL-LJC Central Committee member Yousuf Khan of the Dorise Neilsen Club at the event in Toronto.
We’re gathered here today, to rally for free, democratic, accessible education for all. This is not an idle demand, not a mere dream, it is something that can be fulfilled immediately, to the benefit of millions of Canadians. Average tuition fees for domestic students have increased 115% for undergraduate students and 89% for graduate students over the past 20 years. 60% of today’s college and university students come from higher-income families. On average, international students pay over five times more than domestic students. As a result of poor research funding and high tuition fees, Canada ranks 15th out of 16 peer countries for PhD completion rates. Outstanding federal student loans have reached over $22.3 billion. Public funding for post-secondary education makes up only 54.7% of our public colleges and 47% for universities’ operating revenues. Since 1980, average undergraduate tuition fees have outpaced inflation by three times and average graduate tuition fees by over four times.
The average Canadian student graduates with $28,000 in debt for a bachelor’s degree and takes 9,5 years to pay it off. The estimated cost of free education in Canada is $10 billion. In contrast, Canadian Universities made $47.5 billion in revenues in 2022-23. The six largest banks in Canada made $61 billion in profits in 2022. Last year, the Canadian government purchased $14 billion in F-35 fighter jets and $100 billion in submarines, the first of which won’t be operational until 2037 as part of the federal plan to make the military budget 2% of the GDP. At the same time, only 0.2% of the GDP is spent on funding post-secondary education.
Thirty percent of Ontarians have completed post-secondary education. Education helps give individuals the tools they need to participate in social and economic life and is key to the social and economic development of a society. There are significant benefits of a more educated population in all areas of society including health, community development, civic engagement, and the economy. In fact, the proportions of Canadians who report positive social outcomes such as health, having trust in others, and volunteering are higher among those who have attained post-secondary education. In order for these benefits to be further cultivated, a more educated population must be a priority for any government. The high cost of tuition fees is the largest barrier to accessing post-secondary education and disproportionately affects those who cannot afford this user fee upfront. Students from lower-income families are more likely to rely on student loans. Students who rely on student loans are forced to pay back more than those students who can afford to pay upfront. The interest associated with accessing loans is often two to three times higher than the borrowed principal.
Achieving free education is a realistic goal. This was clear at the time of Canada’s ratification of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in 1976. Canada’s promise to move toward a fully funded post-secondary system was inspired by the work of two jurisdictions in particular, Québec and Newfoundland and Labrador. Since the 1960s, students in Québec have paid no tuition fees to attend general and vocational colleges (CÉGEP). By making CÉGEP education free, governments in Québec acknowledged the importance of reducing the financial barriers for those who choose to pursue a pre-university or technical program. For many years, this goal has also extended to university education, as undergraduate and graduate tuition in Québec was frozen, though that is no longer the case.
Similarly, in the spring of 1965, Newfoundland and Labrador introduced a policy where students at Memorial University would not pay tuition fees and instead were provided a living allowance from the provincial government. Though this policy only lasted a decade, the legacy of accessible post-secondary education in Newfoundland and Labrador continues with tuition fees being slightly lower than in Québec. In fact, the recent policy shift to eliminate provincial student loans in Newfoundland and Labrador is the result of an ongoing dialogue with the Canadian Federation of Students. During the Canadian Federation of Students National Day of Action in 2012, the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador proclaimed that she supported the elimination of tuition fees in the province. Since then, students in Newfoundland and Labrador have strongly advocated for free education in their proposals to the provincial government. In fact earlier this month, there was a rally for Free Education held in St. John’s at the Memorial University.
Free post-secondary education is feasible, it has been achieved in 22 countries and Canada is the 8th wealthiest country in the world. So, the problem is anything but a lack of funds, the problem is that the government is run according to the interests of the rich as are university administrations, with boards of governors that work for investment banks. It is not right that the students, professors, and faculty who make up this university have no voice in its administration whereas those with clear conflicts of interests are in power.
But we are not powerless, if the students band together for the common cause of free education, we can and will make it a reality! Nothing is gained without struggle, such was the case with the free healthcare that we Canadians are so fond of and that the Ford government is trying to privatize. Only through the mass action of the people, putting pressure on those in power can we get the rights we deserve. Because education is a right, it is not a commodity, not something to be saddled with debt. Is it any wonder why university students face such high rates of depression when we have to pay ludicrous prices just to be able to learn? And that only to enter into a job market that hardly values our degrees at all and rejects our applications while crying about how “nobody wants to work anymore.”
We only do not have free education because it is not in the interests of the ruling class to give us free education. Rather it is in their interests to put us in institutions that reproduce the ruling ideology, that deny the rights of students to have a say in how universities are run, that further exploit international students, and spend our money to prosecute our fellow students for exercising their constitutional right to freedom of assembly. The same ruling class that starves, robs, and murders workers all over the world, pushes us into war, genocide, and nuclear annihilation.
We must understand that the fight for free education is part of the broader fight against the unjust, climate-destroying capitalist system and that the government and its politicians are only the puppets of the ruling economic class. That is why, even though it is in the interest of the masses to have free education, the media lies to us, and says it is impossible until we start to believe it. And that is why the only way we can attain free education is through continuous action such as this and through cultivating class consciousness among the working people to fight for their liberation against the parasitic rentier class to achieve a world of peace, equality, and happiness for all!
Free education now!