Research & Submissions - Funding

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The Tuition Trap

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This OCUFA study presents the results of a decade of fiscally motivated tuition increases and the lack of a coherent tuition fee policy in Ontario. The report cautions against a narrow framing of tuition policy, warning that embracing past practices of either annual incremental fee increases or radical expansion of fee deregulation will have a negative impact on access. The report laments in particular the situation of middle- and lower-income families, who are struggling after a decade of rising tuition fees.

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Funding Postsecondary Education in Ontario: Beyond the Path of Least Resistance

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This research study commissioned by the Ontario Coalition for Post-Secondary Education demonstrates that during a time of increasing reliance on educational attainment, the province is investing less in post-secondary education and charging higher tuition fees to students than any time in the last 30 years. The purpose of the study is to broaden debate within the higher-education sector by challenging the assumptions about public funding for higher education, outlining the access implications of increased tuition, and presenting alternative models to the status quo. The paper also investigates income-contingent loan repayment schemes and finds them lacking.

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Reaching for the Top: What results could well-funded Ontario universities achieve?

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Vol. 5 No.4 – Recent studies into Ontario’s economic future suggest setting ambitious targets for greater achievement in our university sector, a proposal requiring significantly increased public funding. This paper looks at what results could be accomplished by meeting such targets. It examines the projected cost of a series of proposed improvements and suggests that Ontario government funding should rise at least to the national average. Great improvements could be achieved by making Ontario universities the best-funded in Canada, and even settling for national-average funding would stop deterioration and allow some improvements. Substantially increased public support would be amply repaid in benefits to the province and to Ontarians.

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Choose Change or Loose Change: User Fees are so 20th Century

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Vol.5 No.2 – Increased user fees and other charges imposed under Conservative premiers Mike Harris and Ernie Eves outweighed the benefits of income-tax cuts for many Ontario families. This paper examines the mathematics of increased user fees and other charges now levied by government, school boards, universities, and other institutions and presents their net effect on hypothetical Ontario households. This paper suggests that the Liberal government should look to other sources of revenue. The report also demonstrates that increased public support for Ontario universities would yield significant returns in the overall prosperity of the province.

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Ontario Universities, the Double Cohort, and the Maclean’s Rankings: The Legacy of the Harris/Eves Years, 1995-2003

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This paper reviews the Harris/Eves governments’ funding cuts to the province’s universities, whose negative impact is reflected in the Maclean’s rankings of Canadian universities. Universities were among the hardest hit of Ontario’s transfer-payment agencies during the Conservative budget cuts, and funding increases in the later years of the Conservative government only partially restored lost funding. The consequences of these cuts on universities were striking in areas such as tuition, operating funding, enrolment, and student-faculty ratios. Universities were also affected substantially by the government’s decision to eliminate Grade 13 from secondary schools, creating the “double cohort.”

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