34 Comments so far

1. The Patmeister on April 5, 2007 6:55 pm

   I must say, I was rather happy Nathan didnt win that committee seat. I had been hoping he would win it prior to his outburst, but people need to learn that it doesnt pay to lash out in such partisan, and frankly, immature ways.

2. Gina Eom on April 5, 2007 8:11 pm

   Thanks for posting this, I’m really happy to hear there was interest in the at large committee seats (save for Code?)

   Natalie was the former AMS Safewalk coordinator, back when she did her BA. She attended AMS Council for her year end presentation a few years ago.

3. Maayan Kreitzman on April 5, 2007 8:26 pm

   Actually I didn’t write down the code at-large seats and forgot. If any one has that info let me know.

4. Spencer on April 5, 2007 9:16 pm

   Code works in a different way. Members-at-large are appointed by Council on recommendation of the Committee. The reason for this was that it’s a very technical committee and it deserved the opportunity to vet candidates. Not saying that’s necessarily the best thing but it is what it is.

5. Reka on April 5, 2007 10:21 pm

   Haha, I’m not at all surprised about the same people being on Code and on Oversight. Code and Policy is the committee for control freaks and people who think of themselves as smarter than the AMS (I can safely say that having been a member for two years… and I’m also not saying that either of those is inherently bad, we Type A’s are just special people.) The Oversight Committee is just a natural extension of that.

   … Granted, it was that realization and the realization that arguing about Code and policing executives has little to no impact on students is what made me quit AMS Council in the first place, and instead opt for, you know, doing stuff. Actual stuff.

6. Peter on April 5, 2007 11:19 pm

   I missed the late-night scandal? Damn! One exciting thing happens all night and its after I’ve left. Boo.

   Also, I think Conor from Commerce is on the Oversight one as well.

   Good job though, and thanks for all the effort!

7. Gerald on April 6, 2007 12:10 am

   hey Maayan,

   it’s possible to backdate posts if you want and thus restore your lost keenerism.

   warmest,
   gerald
   (aka the UBC Insiders designer/web nerd)

8. Spencer on April 6, 2007 1:01 am

   Reka’s right to a certain extent – Code does attract the control freaks, but with some mature leadership it can be a very important committee. The AMS is a bureaucracy with a highly specialized and technical set of rules that make it function so unless you can successfully change the rules, it is nearly impossible to change the AMS. I’d like to think that I contributed substantially more when I was president and had the maturity of a 1,000 ft view of the organization than when I was code chair. The important thing is for the committee to quickly come to a decision about the ends that it is pursuing and then figure out a way to meet them. To refer to Tim’s comments in a previous thread, Council isn’t the body that “pissed all over committee reform”, but Code. It was their job to figure out the technical aspects but I think they sensed that Council wasn’t gung-ho about it and felt the need to slow the whole thing down. That being said, I was happy with the progress that was being made while I was there, but a great deal of it seemed to fall to the wayside in the last year.

   Also, I hope that Oversight doesn’t just become a spot for “policing” executives. The intent was to provide an appropriate forum to raise concerns about executives so that Council as a whole could focus on more important things than policing the exec. In fact, the structure of it (Which hopefully hasn’t been lost) was to provide constructive advice to executives that were likely not experts when they were elected. That additional support is huge.

9. Reka on April 6, 2007 2:13 am

   I agree with Spencer that, if managed well, Code and the Oversight committees can be extremely productive an influential bodies, but that’s a lot harder than it sounds. I think being able to provide (and receive) effective exec feedback requires a level of professionalism that most of us students just don’t have. I was also disappointed to see that the big committee reforms we had worked on didn’t go anywhere this year. Bummer.

10. Maayan Kreitzman on April 6, 2007 2:15 am

    Could someone explain about the committee reforms for those that don’t know?

11. Spencer on April 6, 2007 2:45 am

    Naturally I should be working on a paper, which is why I’m spending my time here.

    Committee reform was something that has come up three times, to my understanding. The first was in 2000-01 under Chris Eaton where it was just meant to be a downsizing of the number of committees. There is something in the neighbourhood of 19 committees (then and now, give or take two) and the theory was that by reducing the number, councillors could put more time into it.

    In 2003-04, I brought this up again as Code Chair. Unfortunately at the time I was really just advocating change for the sake of change, without fully understanding Council or organizational behaviour. My reasons were basically the same as Eaton’s.

    In 2005-06 the topic was brought up again when I was president. Unfortunately I think it suffered because a) the Code Chair for the first 2/3 of the year did nothing and was as close to a “political enemy” as I had that year, and b) people with the experience to grasp the complexity of the proposal were predisposed against it because of the prior times it was proposed.

    Basically, the new proposal was based on a few principles:

    1) Depending entirely on the executive to establish organizational priorities locks the AMS into a one-year cycle that limits our ability to do major improvements, like reforming our bylaws, doing better communications, creating a long-term financial strategy, etc. etc.

    2) Council generally has more people that come back the following year and is therefore an appropriate place to dedicate long-term decision making.

    3) The AMS benefits when ambitious persons (often who are on Council) are given small but meaningful opportunities to provide leadership.

    4) Strengthening the responsibility of Council and its ability to affect change will stop councillors from badmouthing the organization to our constituents, which will allow respect for the AMS to grow and a feeling of enfranchisement to grow with it.

    5) There may be more, but it’s all on Jeff’s computer.

    With those principles in mind, the goal was to drastically reduce the number of committees to focus on issues that are long-term and bigger than the responsibilities of any one executive. These included:

    a) Resources – Management of revenue, projecting revenue needs into the future, making plans to align our financial capacity with future financial needs.
    b) Stewardship – The governance committee that would look at the way the AMS is governed and make sure that responsibilities are clear, that it is open and accessible to our constituents, etc.
    c) Community – creating a greater sense of community on campus, handing out money from funds, etc.
    d) Oversight – Basically a body to which the exec would submit workplans at the beginning of the year and then those workplans would be reviewed as the year went on. They would also be able to audit programs, finances, etc. as requested or required.

    And there were some others that just slip my mind right now. Budget was probably one of them. Again, it’s on Jeff’s computer.

    There would also be executive working groups. Things like Campus planning, safety, impacts, etc. would be included there. Basically, since those are issues that fall under the responsibility of a specific executive, we would allow that exec to structure the committee as they see fit because a committee existing that could potentially disagree with them undermines that principle of executive responsibility.

    There would also be an agenda committee that would meet a week before council and draft the agenda. It would be the president and the chairs of the different committees. This would also function as a group that would hire the speaker, elections administrator, etc. and act as a group that would receive reports re: litigation that it was not yet appropriate to share with council as a whole (for instance the AMS is frequently sued for small claims stuff that isn’t worth council’s time. It’s when it gets bigger that it should be brought to their attention, but this way some of council would always be in the loop).

    Committees would also be chaired by members of the committee elected by the committee.

    Sorry this isn’t more specific (trust me when I say that all the responsibilities of the current committees were assigned somewhere appropriate) but the intent was to have somebody looking at the long-term goals of the AMS (as outlined in the Strategic Framework) so we can move ourselves out of this organizational stagnation and actually align ourselves to “serving the aspirations of all UBC students.” ;)

12. Maayan Kreitzman on April 6, 2007 3:47 am

    Thanks Spencer. That was helpful. So, would appointments to the few long-term committees be for a term of more than one year, pending re-election by the constituency? Or was it just expected that veteran councilors would choose to nominate themselves for the same committee year after year?
    Would these committees have take over some of the executive’s power? i.e., would most of the motions to council come from them as opposed to from the exec? I mean – what would they actually *do*, if the other replacement committees would still handle wahtever they handle now? Writing reports?

    Also, when you say that the exec would have the power to decide how to chose the members of the other, “functional” committees, do you mean that they could either appoint people themselves OR ask council to appoint people?

13. Spencer on April 6, 2007 4:07 am

    Keep in mind that the executive does a tremendous amount that doesn’t require council motions. In our executive year we were very busy but there were times when we had maybe one motion to bring to Council, and sometimes that’s because we were looking for stuff. The executive would still function as the executive/operational branch of the AMS, doing day-to-day stuff but also providing leadership on the specific duties of their portfolios.

    Because some of the committees fall exclusively within the portfolio of a single executive member, the consensus was that the only specifics would be the mandate of these new working groups, and which executive was responsible for them. If they decided to appoint people themselves, so be it. If they asked for appointments by council, so be it. Because they are the one that Council will hold accountable at the end of the day, it is appropriate for them to put together a group that will help them work best. For something like the Safety working group, people would find it suspect that the safety coordinator had not been consulted, and could hold the VP Academic accountable as a result.

    As for the turnover thing, the assumption was just that people who had been on a committee would want to stay on. I think it’s a pretty reasonable assumption.

    I will note that my successor was not on board with committee reform because he thought it would create more red tape, which is probably why it fell apart. The concern that it would get in the way of executives doing their jobs is valid, but I think it lacks understanding that the intention is to reorient council to deal with these big, systemic issues (the things that were constantly coming up on this blog throughout the election) and to leave the executive to do their jobs in peace.

14. Anonymous on April 6, 2007 6:08 am

    Peace all; tristan here.
    Thanks for your post, Maayan. It is so great that so many people put so much time into last night’s meeting – it was an important one. I wanted to say something about the lobby committee that I said last night, but I fear was lost in the hubbub: there is X-com on the one hand, and the Lobby REVIEW committee on the other. The first is run by the VP-X, and the second is not at all. The VP-X is actually not the chair of the Lobby Review committee. The purpose is to provide a different perspective. Indeed, Sam is the chair, and indeed Sam is an NDPer, and his main concern voice was that the AMS did not officially participate in the CFS (read NDP) day of action – which is true. Matt Naylor (who I love and dealt with this, as with everything, with respect and dignity) would not participate in such a thing either. However, anyone’s political offiliation does not dictate their personal politics, and certainly not their competence in general. However, it IS important to talk about “politics” when it comes to lobbying. We have to. In my opinion, we have to break out of the CFS-CASA feud, and for that there probably needs to be new blood. I say let’s talk about it. Though, of course, politeness is always the order of the day on AMS council. (Or is it?)

15. Anonymous on April 6, 2007 6:15 am

    crap. slorry for the splelling; i meant sam’s concern was “voiced”, and “affiliation”.
    peas in.

16. angela on April 6, 2007 10:11 am

    i know a lot of nice guy liberals, but i have to disagree with tristan on one point – i think support of the liberal party (or any other) may say a few things about an individual’s personal values. is it safe to say liberal party members believe in mainstream canadian liberal values? heh, and is it still ok to oppose these values?

    nathan doesnt seem like he sugar-coated it… i guess some people just dont understand that there are folks out there who get genuinely pissed off whenever they think of the liberals or any other major (sorry, ndp) player in our political arena.

    there are outbursts in every parliament every freakin day of the year (followed by the kind of omg-total-outrage patmeister starts us off with). politics should be a passionate enterprise where people are allowed to be pissed off without being accused of playing too dirty simply by hating on someones extensive political work. yeah, crompton sounds like he took out his frustration with the liberal party out on naylor. so what. this is a lobbying position, and im pretty sure naylor had all that liberal street cred in mind when he ran for the office to begin with.

    naylor has prevailed through many theatrical pointings-out of his liberal hackitude, and he carried the day again.

17. Spencer on April 6, 2007 3:12 pm

    With regards to Tristan’s comments, I like the way he’s thinking about the Lobbying Review committee, but I would have to disagree with him regarding the historical accuracy of why the committee is the way it is.

    It was formed in 2004-05 to review the AMS involvement in CASA. Amina wanted to leave CASA and this was the means by which she was going to make her case. The VP External was not on it because she was not particularly interested in being involved in Amina’s crusade and not because it would have been a conflict of interest.

    A report was issued at the end of the year that identified a number of concerns which taken on their own were quite alarming (getting rid of the easy-in, easy-out model, for instance) but when our administration came in we quickly determined that things were not nearly as bad as the report issued and the things that were spooky (changing to a per-student fee model) were items CASA was willing to reverse.

    I think the CFS-CASA feud is a damaging thing, not because there are two organizations but because it’s a feud. The willingness of the CFS to aggressively poach CASA schools through, what I would argue are, some pretty underhanded tactics doesn’t help things. The (reasonable) CASA fear of all things CFS doesn’t help either.

    The truth is that if CASA did not exist, CFS would not be so aggressive on government relations and lobbying, and if CFS didn’t exist, CASA would be less concerned with trying to maintain a visible presence on campus. Having two organizations exist is good for students because they get better service from CFS and CASA as a result.

18. Anonymous on April 6, 2007 5:55 pm

    Tristan here;
    That’s true spencer about the formation of the committee. The terms of reference were changed last year, however (by none other than Matt Naylor), to make it so that it acts as a councillors’ committee for the review of and preparation for lobby day, and lobby strategizing in general.

19. Maayan Kreitzman on April 6, 2007 6:03 pm

    Thanks for the clarifications tristan and spencer, I adjusted the text. I apologize for the mistakes, but I am still learning and so much of what I know is from conversations or impressions that might not be robustly accurate (some are just stupid mistakes, too).
    I agree with angela that you can make some inferences about people from their affiliations, but I dunno if that’s a very intelligent basis for smear campaigning. Apparently it doesn’t work either. No-one shackled, gagged, or disciplined Nathan Crompton – he merely lost. So while people needn’t be polite or constructive, they might not get as much done if they aren’t.
    Speaking of poaching schools, didn’t didn’t SFU just get a mandate from its student to leva CFS?
    http://www.sfss.ca/elections/data.htm
    Which reminds me, the most exciting part of the last meeting was actually the fact that JJ McCullough of Filibuster Cartoons (and the SFU elections administrator) was sitting accross the room. oooOOOOoooo
    http://www.filibustercartoons.com/about.php

20. Sam on April 6, 2007 11:37 pm

    Just wanted to echo the comments commending Maayan for her dedication in posting this thorough documentation and analysis…

    Also, a clarification. Tristan’s comments have been fair and insightful (although I would disagree with his assertion that the CFS = the NDP, but that’s an aside best left for another forum), but I am not in fact the chair of the Lobbying Review Committee – that role will be filled by Tahara, and I look forward to working with her.

21. Maayan Kreitzman on April 6, 2007 11:55 pm

    Thanks Sam – I do have that in the post. I wrote it down at the time, tristan was just mistaken.

22. angela on April 7, 2007 3:24 am

    jj is so hot right now. le sigh.

23. Anonymous on April 7, 2007 7:43 am

    Ah yes, sorry to Tahara for thinking that Sam was a chair. (“I am a human, not a chair,” protested Sam). I’m sure Tahara will help get the student movement going! She is an inspiring speaker. (Sam, you very articulate on Wednesday too, and immaculately clad to boot).

    As for the CFS=NDP. Indeed they are not equal insofar as an egg and a chicken are not equal! Or as Hegel would say, there is no equality, but rather they form a higher synthesis: “CFSNDP+”. And to be clear, I’m not knocking them: at least they can put on good demos and get the people’s feet in the street.
    Eat lots of chocolate bunnies to celebrate the Cadbury Corporation’s Holy Day.
    Peas in.
    Tristan

24. Nathan on April 7, 2007 8:04 am

    I suppose “maturity” involves a refusal to engage political issues. I’m not sure if I feel bad for unsettling the lotus atmosphere of privilege politics. And I do apologize that there will be more (so-called) outbursts in the future, since I don’t plan a conversion to middle politics…even if the repressed centrist fantasy is cosily appealing.

    There is no spontaneity to my claim that serious obstacles will prevent meaningful lobby work this year, like all other years. The reality is that there are many members of parliament concerned that federal transfers to the provinces (for example) have declined from 0.56% of GDP in 1978 to roughly 0.20% in the present. To build bridges, we need to radically revise the way we do lobbying. I suggested allying with those legislators and parties who are fully interested in post-secondary education. (It’s clear enough that the center and center-right parties have abandoned students.) I guarantee that this type of lobby work will be very fruitful, but I also guarantee that it will be difficult because our VP External is a liberal partisan.

25. Spencer on April 7, 2007 4:45 pm

    Of course, that buys into the assumption that BC needs a federal bail out to improve PSE when it already had the lowest provincial income tax in the country… And given that the BC Liberals have nothing to do with the federal Liberals, that’s not really an issue. More to the point, the leadership of the BC Liberals and the BC NDP are in pretty close agreement about how PSE should be dealt with in BC – keep tuition reasonably predictable and regulated and increase grants.

    PS – Tristan, thanks for the correction! Though it sounds suspiciously like something that’s duties should be included in Oversight by that description, but whatevs.

26. Nathan on April 7, 2007 6:30 pm

    Spencer has a notion that if the province isn’t maximizing its transfers or spending its own wealth on PSE, current federal transfers must be adequate. The federal numbers I offer here are useful because they give a general picture of the current situation without ignoring our potential allies in provincial parliament, i.e., one can hold two views at once: 1) BC needs more federal money to improve PSE, 2) BC PSE policies are currently not good and have contributed to the 91% rise in tuition over the past 5 years.

    It’s a testament to our absolute lack of imagination that we accept that the provincial parties are interminably dedicated to policies of “keeping tuition stable”. Actually, it is very interesting that Spencer can agree that liberal BC has the “lowest provincial income tax in the country” while, at the same, claiming that NDP and Liberal policies would not effect funding to PSE. Accessibility questions of PSE are questions of equality, and it is not a secret that center-left parties, even pro-imperialist parties like the NDP, are willing to finally tax BC’s super-elite by changing income tax structures.

    I just read an article about how NDP MLA Jenny Kwan, (former leader of the NDP,) is currently appealing to the UN because she is concerned that “the city’s desperately poor are being systematically kicked out of their homes in the lead-up to the 2010”. By contrast, the Liberal party is plowing ahead with the multi-billion dollar olympics project with no regard for the social costs of gentrification in the DTES and the loss of single room occupancy spaces (SRO’s). I think this conveys to students that the different parties have very different priorities, and if their formal policies are the same (I will entertain Spencer regarding PSE, just for a moment), they understand our class society in markedly different ways. These difference should indicate to us as students exactly which members of parliament have an ear for student concerns. Lobbying is about more than fighting with the single elite party for small scraps in the form of grants. It is about recognizing that another society is possibly, and working in that spirit to build a movement of allies and affiliations for the future.

27. Spencer on April 7, 2007 7:07 pm

    Momma told me never argue with people on the internets, but it’s so much fun.

    Nathan, I have eight responses to your post.

    1) Let’s ignore for the moment the Quebec-ish culture of provincial entitlement that is created by constantly viewing the federal government as your primary source of money, all I am saying is that buying into the analysis that low federal transfers are the primary problem necessarily makes it easier for the provincial government to pass on its constitutional responsibility. The primary point of concern should always be the provincial government. Obviously federal involvement should not be neglected but that involvement is primarily managed by CASA, which is very non-partisan. My point about provincial parties remains the same.

    2) I’m still unclear how, if you think BC PSE is lacking because of poor decisions by the federal government, the policies of the BC government are bad.

    3) Nobody’s saying the two BC parties are locked into those policies, nor are they identical – just that they’re very similar right now.

    4) You’re right to say that the policies of the different parties have an effect – the NDP had higher taxes but they weren’t putting that money into education. Tuition was kept low without being compensated which caused vastly lower educational quality. With a 91% increase in tuition, participation rates amongst BC youth have gone up, not down. I point this out only to say that there is no student party in British Columbia.

    5) You imply that lower tuition increases accessibility. It doesn’t. Students don’t attend university for class reasons but it has nothing to do with the cost of education and everything to do with the worth they place on the degree which is usually informed by one’s parents. Students with degree-holding parents are more likely to go to university than ones with parents that just have a high-school education.

    6) Even if it was about money, which admittedly it is for some, what sense does a general tuition reduction make when $0.37 of each dollar spent on those reductions goes to members of the highest income quartile because that quartile makes up 37% of the university population. That money can go directly to the students that need it through grants.

    7) And to anticipate your reponse, yes a progressive taxation system should deal with that but I have an additional two responses to that: a) taxes that are too high drive away the wealthy and reduce your tax base, and b) there’s nothing wrong with an additional progressive payment plan (ie a needs-based grant) within the structure of another progressive payment structure (ie the tax system).

    8) And regarding thecritique of social housing, here’s some recent evidence to suggest that maybe Jenny Kwan is out to get headlines rather than solutions: http://tinyurl.com/2oxhgp If she was serious she would not be going to a toothless body like the UN but taking the government to court on the grounds that kicking people onto the street is a violation of their security of the person (or something like that).

    Cheers,
    Spencer

28. Gina Eom on April 7, 2007 10:48 pm

    Spencer,

    5. “You imply that lower tuition increases accessibility. It doesn’t. […] it has nothing to do with the cost of education and everything to do with the worth they place on the degree which is usually informed by one’s parents.”

    Tuition would have to be lowered significantly in order to change national culture such that accessibility is not an issue. I agree with Nathan when he envisions a culture where parental influence may still play a part, but the tuition does not. And the next social problem of course would be the cost of living. And here again I would advocate for subsidization. Call me European.

    4. “Tuition was kept low without being compensated which caused vastly lower educational quality. With a 91% increase in tuition, participation rates amongst BC youth have gone up, not down.”

    Now that our tuition has increased from that basal level by 102%, has our educational quality “recovered” from the NDP years? This is a rhetorical question (the answer is a big fat no, if you believe the NSSE survey results).

29. Spencer on April 8, 2007 12:08 am

    Gina,

    I’m afraid I don’t understand what your first critique is. Though I can agree that subsidization of living costs is a good thing, as long as its needs based and is actually directed to the people that need it rather than universal in its application. That was the point of my argument.

    Also, with regard to educational quality, you’re wrong. I’m not saying it’s good but you’re completely ignoring comparison to the way things would have been if they had continued as they were. This summer I’m taking my last required course at SFU because the UBC deficit means the offering was cut from the summer schedule. Lab times are only starting to get back to where they were before the underfunding by the NDP. I have definitely seen the overall quality of my university experience increase over the last few years (student services, number of tenure track professors, number of course offerings – all improved). These are incredibly important and its reductive to say that nothing has gotten better when that is empirically false. The NSSE data compares us to peers and not historical trends of the institution.

30. Gina Eom on April 8, 2007 2:40 am

    I have definitely seen the overall quality of my university experience increase over the last few years (student services, number of tenure track professors, number of course offerings – all improved).

    I’ve seen the opposite. Not considering the hiring chill, and reduction of course offerings, cuts in all departments from the budget shortfall this year, I haven’t seen an improvement in the above mentioned things.

    Except when you talk about number of course offerings, I’ll give you that. Of course, at senate we’ve discussed at length how courses are listed in the calendar but not offered in some years – but nevertheless use to show how we’ve increased course offerings.

    Either way, both you and I are making speculative, subjective judgement calls as we are not citing any data.

    When you say something is empirically false, show me some evidence from pre/and post tuition freeze to demonstrate an increase in educational quality.

    This is the first time I’ve heard someone say their educational quality has increased with the tuition increases.

31. Spencer on April 8, 2007 6:27 am

    If we can agree the course offerings increased (aside from this year) that proves my point, though I admit it may seem a little convoluted. It’s possible we’re coming at quality from different perspectives. I’m considering it from the perspective of being able to take courses. Five years ago it was not uncommon to be hearing students that weren’t able to get the required courses to graduate. That may still be happening now but it certainly isn’t something I heard during 05-06 which would suggest to me it is less of a problem. Teaching quality hasn’t increased, just the most basic requirements of offering a degree program, but I still consider that significant.

    As for tenure track, etc. maybe that is just in the faculty of arts. But I’m curious, in your lab courses, how often do you get into the lab? 2000-02 most lab sections were only offered once every two weeks and according to the student service website, key classes like Bio 140 are back to offering labs once a week.

    I’m certainly not saying its miles better, just that I can see some tangible improvements and the NSSE data does not track that because it’s a snapshot of UBC rather than a map of historical trends.

32. Anonymous on April 9, 2007 10:59 am

    Tristan here:
    spencer, i wonder about people who defend in the way you do (there are many of you), i wonder:

    1) what do you think is an acceptable tuition level? is it at a “perfect” level right now? would 10 thousand be better? 15?

    2)do you think that there should be tuition for high school? why not?

    3)do you get payed by the university to defend their crap policies (or are you the only remaining one not on its payroll?).
    [just joking {or am i?}}

    4)why do you read this stuff when you’re not around (that thought inspired the last question)

    oh, yeah, an please stop those weird “quebec entitlement” statements. first, the quebec student movement puts us to shame. more importantly, every human being is entitled to an education, even (especially) an advanced one. the problem with entitlement is when some people are entitled while others are not. right?

33. Spencer on April 9, 2007 6:16 pm

    Hey Tristan,

    The answers really aren’t that difficult.

    1. My opinion is that tuition should be best viewed as a percentage of the cost of the education received. It seems to me that there exists a consensus that 20% is where that should be, based on arguments made across the country that the early 1990’s saw a reasonable amount of system funding and tuition, which had a national average of 20%. Once we stop thinking in terms of absolute dollars we’re going to be able to make a more compelling argument about protecting quality. I will note that this idea of tuition as a percentage has a great deal of political weight. It’s also official AMS policy. Would I be happy with $10,000 tuition? If I was getting $50,000 of education for it, absolutely. Right now the ~$5,000 students pay translates to ~$16,000 which is not necessarily sufficient value. However, my primary argument is that a concentrated focus should be made not on the issue of tuition but on grants for students that really need it. Frankly, I don’t have a problem with charging even more money to the students that originally attended St. George’s or Upper Canada College and were paying $20,000 a year for high school.

    2. As for tuition with high school, no, I don’t. Because there are essentially a uniform set of teaching needs (and when there is diversity it comes in later years that can be handled by the system, and even then its not a lot of diversity) that no longer exist at the post-secondary level. That diversity has extraordinarily high costs, and university seats are immensely resource intensive. They simply don’t compare. That said, I think college tuition should be vastly lower than university tuition, for the reason that it also doesn’t compare.

    3. The only time I’ve ever been paid by UBC was when I worked at the Trek Program Centre for the U-Pass Launch Team. And even then, nobody has asked me what I think about their allocation of money to fulfill their Policy 72 promises. It’s not enough. We’re both talking about maintaining an accessible post-secondary education system. I’m just saying that when 16% of university attendees come from the bottom income quartile and 37% come from the top income quartile, instead of giving $1 to each person in each of those groups, we could give $3 to the student from the bottom income quartile. You’re saying pay the rich kids too, by logical extension of your argument.

    4. I’m still a UBC student, I have a lot of experience with these issues, I still work in the PSE field so this stuff is right up my alley, I’m a dork, and I think that organizations like the AMS suffer when their alumni are unwilling to engage in their ongoing development.

    5. You aren’t listening to my argument re: Quebec. I was not making a comment on the state of education there (though I will in a moment). Instead I was making a comment about a more general culture of entitlement in the Quebec provincial government with regard to federal dollars. For a province that is so hell-bent on preventing the intrusion of the federal government in its affairs, it is more than willing to beg, blackmail and generally cajole the federal government to give it more money.

    That being said, here’s some things the Quebec student movement has been successful at: tuition for out-of-province students is $4,914 or $163 per credit at McGill whereas domestic student tuition at UBC is $4,257 or $142 a credit. The Quebec government barely has a student loan program or bursary system to speak of, whereas the BC government has a pretty decent one (not great but it’s good in comparison to other provinces). This means that BC students that have problems paying for education can afford to go to other provinces or institutions that have programs better matching their interests. Low-income Quebec students cannot.

    I fully agree with you that education should be accessible to those that want it. My argument is that there are ways to achieve that which have absolutely nothing to do with tuition. The latest data is that a $1,000 increase in tuition only creates a 1.3% decrease in university participation (Price of Knowledge, 2007). At UBC that would translate to 559 students. So should we keep the university accessible for $559,000 or $43,000,000? There’s plenty of problems with that example but the general thrust of it remains – universities are wicked expensive, tuition can help pay for that, accessibility must be carefully monitored, but in the end of the day lets focus on funding students that have real problems rather than the ones that demonstrably do not.

    I also want to echo Gina’s comments re: living subsidies – they’re very important. And they come through a grant system rather than a universal subsidy. This is the sort of thing that should be the concentration of our focus. If you want to look at class issues, what about the fact that some of the wealthiest students live ten minutes from campus at their parents house whereas some of the poorest students (and I don’t even mean East Van but some of the tougher parts of Surrey) either have to travel so much during the day that it’s difficult to have a part time job, or they have to move out of their house and add an additional cost to their lives. Tuition should be predictable and regulated by the government, but I’m not willing to go further than that when there are much bigger problems to deal with.

34. Anonymous on April 11, 2007 5:17 am

    tristan here,
    dear spencer:
    i agree about targeted cost of living subsidies. i have always said that they should SUPPLEMENT low tuition (tuition is a tax on education, as the health care tax is a tax on health care).

    university should not cost substantially more (if at all) than college. it’s why almost everyone at my high school went to college instead of university. that is not fair (understatement). everyone deserves a chance to learn the art of living, not just be a technician.

    rich people keep on trying to tell me that i want to subsidize rich kids’ education. nice try. now you are saying that that follows “logically” from my argument. you have shown statistically that university is full of rich kids. we have always known that. i am painfully aware of that. we both want to change that. (or something). i am also painfully aware that tuition and the spectre of debt deters working class families. you say “grants”. and i say “low tuition AND grants”. and increase income tax for rich people and corporations. (i don’t care if it scares away “investors” or “cools” the economy. balderdash.)

    you’re probably going to say: but then you’re taking money away from health care because of the way transfers go. well obviously if we bring the argument to that level then we change the way transfers go, and then lower military spending. i’m sure you’ll agree with me on that one. (not).

    i disagree with you, though, about high schools. there should be tuition for high school, and then we can use the tuition fees to build research facilities in high school playgrounds, and to make grants for poor students so they can afford to go to high school, since otherwise they wouldn’t be able to afford it anymore. and then we would be morally superior because we wouldn’t be subsidizing rich kids who abuse our public school system.
    ;)

    peace, and onward toward and equal society. (almost there! i can smell it! just one more grant will probably do it).