Tuesday, February 23, 2010

4 x

Well I'll be damned, again...

Boy am I glad I decided to go back to school two years ago and not wait until now...
Our friends at Partie Libéral du Québec are about to give in their budget for 2010.
La proposition sur les frais de scolarité est la suivante : non pas doubler les frais, ni tripler les frais, mais bien QUADRUPLER les frais de scolarité pour l'ensemble de la population étudiante.

Bon quadrupler, c'est pas la mer à boire, direz les plus à droite d'entre vous (vous savez qui vous êtes). 4 x 1 = 4, 4 c'est pas bien plus que 1. trois de plus, c'est tout...

Pour un exemple concret de ce que ça signifie, prenons le cas de monsieur Michel-Jean Ronsoti, un jeune homme qui jongle avec l'idée de retourner aux études.
Michel-Jean considérerait s'inscrire à un programme d'une durée de 3 ans, à raison de 5 cours par session.
5 cours à l'université au Québec, avec les frais de scolarité présents, c'est environ 1150$.
Si on rajoute les frais généraux (propres à chacun des établissements), pour un uqamien, sa session revient à un grand total pas loin de : 1500.00$. Mais Mr Ronsoti, qui croit mériter mieux que l'éducation réservée au bas peuple, a des visées plus élevées, et désire s'inscrire à l'université la plus chère à Montréal, soit Mcgill. Ne connaissant pas les frais de cet établissement prestigieux, on peut tout de même supposer qu'ils dépassent pas mal ceux de l'Université du peuple, donc disons 3000.00$ par session pour Mcgill. Ce qui nous fait 6000.00$ par année.
Rajoutons environ 10000.00$ par année scolaire pour les autres dépenses, on arrive à des dépenses totales de : 48000$ pour les 3 années d'étude. La part des prêts du régime de prêt et bourse étant à peu près de 50%, Mr Ronsoti aurait donc, s'il avait entrepris ses études à Mcgill il y a 3 ans, un endettement total à la fin de ses études d'environ 24000.00$.


Projetons nous maintenant dans le futur, en septembre 2010, lorsque les despotes du parti libéral élus par défaut ( on se rappelle des derniers taux de participations aux élections provincial) auront mis en place leurs mesures budgétaires et que Mr. Ronsoti s'apprêtera à débuter sa première session d'étude. Les frais de scolarités ont maintenant été quadruplés.
Donc, par session, ce n'est plus 3000.00$ qu'il doit débourser, mais bien 6100$ (environ).
Donc 12200$ par année. On rajoute 12000.00$ pour les autres dépenses ( indexation du coût de la vie dûe en partie à cause des problèmes d'alcool agravés par les hausses de frais), c'est maintenant 24200.00$ par année qui devront être déboursés, donc 72600.00$ pour le total des études. Les libéraux ayant continué pendant ces 3 années de ravager notre social-démocratie, on peut supposer que le 50% de la part du prêt du régime aura été augmentée à 66%, et que donc le total de l'endettement de Mr Michèle-Jean aura grimpé à : 48400$

4 comments:

Master of the Craw said...

"[...]
Yesterday, the former Parti Québécois premier joined former Liberal and PQ finance ministers and Treasury Board presidents, along with business leaders and retired rectors in urging the Charest government to lift the 14-year cap on tuition fees while ensuring accessibility and maintaining current levels of public funding.

“The situation is a dangerous one, and requires an immediate response,” they caution in the Pact for the Competitive Funding of Our Universities.

Calling for political courage and bold action, Bouchard says it’s time Quebec deregulated tuition and freed universities to charge students the extra $3,000 to $8,000 a year it costs to educate them, depending on their field of study.
[...]

Bouchard said there is nothing fair about a system in which students enrolled in high-paying professional programs such a medicine, dentistry and law pay the same tuition – and are bound by the same loan repayment schedules – as students with a degree in literature or social sciences.

[...]
He said universities need fresh xxx?revenue?xxx sources if the province hopes to catch up and keep pace with the rest of North America, on campus and in the job market. “Quebec’s approach to the funding of its universities is a failure,” Lacroix said. “Not only must we realize this, we must remedy it before it's too late.”

Lacroix admits he’s not keen on McGill University’s decision to privatize its MBA program, allowing it to charge $29,000. Yet he has no problem allowing each university to set its own fees – in business terms, to decide what the market will bear – even if that widens the gap between top-ranked schools – think research-intensive schools such as U de M, McGill and Université Laval – and the rest of the pack. That’s how it works elsewhere in North America and Europe, he said, so why not here?
[...]

Yesterday, he said that future depends on the willingness of many people to come together and do the right thing.

“Political courage isn’t something you can swallow with your morning coffee,” he said. “Courageous political acts are possible when it isn't just the politician who is being courageous,” Bouchard said.
[...]"

I know this won't be a popular thing to say but postponing increasing tuition fees by even modest sums for so long might be the reason why the retarded parti liberal has announced this sudden increase in tuition.
as far as I can remember every fucking year the government tries to increase school fees and every year the students protest until the government backs down.
that being said it's absurd to cut costs in education of all things. I understand wanting to be more fiscally conservative and by all means they should cut costs where they can. If they want to charge us a little bit more I wouldn't even mind that much. but a three fold increase to outright privatization? What part of the free market system (similar to what is in America for example) where access to education is directly proportional to your ability to pay it seems fair to them?
what's more penalizing the science students is exactly the wrong way to go about it. No disrespect to those who have picked other disciplines but if you castrate your province's ability to cheaply produce educated and well trained technicians and scientists you're going to lose much much more than whatever money it would cost you to invest in education itself.
How much money has the Quebec government been able to wrangle from the computer tech industry for example? How likely are these companies to leave the province once the pool of qualified and competition computer people leave the province? How about doctors, or chemists, biologist or engineers?

There's a resonable way to do this and theres the ass backwards / quebecois way of doing it.

Dementor said...

"There's a resonable way to do this and theres the ass backwards / quebecois way of doing it."

easy with the racism, there man...

The quebecois way is probably the most progressive way of all north america.

Although I agree the tuition fees being augmented is a normal thing to do, and freezing them for so long (14 years) has been a huge mistake, I believe the suggested quadrupling is absurdly dangerous. There's got to be another way around it, like making the fucking private sector pay, you know? They're the ones who are benefiting from good and capable graduates. The private sector should definitely be taxed on the account of education.

Master of the Craw said...

I don't disagree... then again I looked it up and whoops, it seems the Quebec government has been giving these companies subsidies. So, basically, they're not really making money off of them nor off of the salaries you and I would rake in.

Anyways, yes, there should have been regular but small increases in tuition over the years. 14 years of tuition freeze is a lot of fucking inflation and making all of that back in one shot is stupid. just stupid.
according to the (inexplicably uncritical) article the hikes won't come into effect until 2012 so our imaginary friend will still have 2 years of normal tuition. but then boom, everyone gets fucked. Are they going to bump up those student loans in order to compensate? Because I don't see many people being able to take out 30k loans for school when taking out a loan for our still relatively small fees is an ordeal for most.

Dementor said...

Where the hell did I read they would quadruple the fees?
Sorry mr Ronsoti, I think I may have been wrong on that one.