The Montreal Student Riots

[4X4]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

The way I read it, he said he could have done better in school if he didn't have to work 30 hours a week at a terrible job. I didn't see anything about "not enough time to sleep or get drunk".

In fact, here it is exactly:

"I had an A- average, but I think I could have done better if I hadn't been working 30 hours a week selling shoes at Kmart..."

What's better than an A average? He's already acing uni. So what's the problem? Not enought time to sleep or get drunk?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

I don't know why there isn't more of an uproar in English Canada. Maybe because we see that things could be worse. Canada's tuition rates are much lower than our neighbours to the south. In Australia tuition was free until 1988. Now it's, on average, $10,000 USD per year. Whereas here it's a $9,000 USD charge. Quebec on the other hand, look at France or Sweden or other countries where tuition is even lower. The students in Quebec are willing to take to the streets and protest while everywhere else in Canada we'd have these nice little demonstrations about tuition fees, then we'd go home after an hour of having our due diligence and then resign ourselves to paying more.

Personally, I think that there needs to be more merit based scholarships. I had an A- average, but I think I could have done better if I hadn't been working 30 hours a week selling shoes at Kmart to pay tuition, books, lab fees, transportation, meals, etc, etc.. I suppose I could have gotten a student loan, but I look at the situation my sister-in-law was in where she graduated $50,000 in the hole. It's daunting to just be getting your first real job owing that much money. So raise the price of tuition up to $15,000, but take $5,000 and make it into scholarship money for those with high enough marks. And don't go doing what they did with my brother and give him $25,000 a year because he's a brainiac even though his total costs were $20,000 and he spent the rest on video games and PC equipment. Spread it around to those in that A- range so we don't need to work so many hours at minimum wage jobs and can put more time into our studies. And maybe if there is a higher cost, but more scholarships, maybe we won't see as many students spend their first two years partying it up and getting lousy grades.

I know this thread is likely to end up just with Quebec bashing as most dealing with the province do, but I think the issue of education costs and accessibility to higher education is an important issue across the country.

I'd be all for merit based scholarships, I think it makes logical sense.I think it would be just as prudent to have a percentage based student loan forgiveness for the banks, and maybe they could get tax credits from the government for encouraging education and excellence.

If I remember and it was 20 years ago, but I get a percentage of my student loan forgiven by the bank based on my good GPA and an early start to payment due to finding a job in my field.

I also got a discount on my first new car that I bought after university because I found a job in my chosen field which was very cool.

As much as people point to free education as some kind of economic bonus, as education has gotten more expensive on a per student basis the government can't continue to just pump increasing money into universities and post secondary institutions, eventually you would get funding stagnation. I agree that its a short term pain for students to pay a nominal tuition but its a 40 year gain for them both in terms of economic and job satisfaction.

Like I said, Students should almost consider their tuition as an investment towards future student education as the government is still paying the vast majority of educational costs.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by 4X4

What's better than an A average? He's already acing uni. So what's the problem? Not enought time to sleep or get drunk?

A+ is better than A-.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

A+ is better than A-.

Yes but when you hit that A+ number your education becomes a lot more expensive as you are constantly losing milk money and replacing underwear that gets torn when it gets pulled out of the back of your pants and stretched over your head.

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

At this point it's a foregone conclusion that the greater access to education a population has, the better and more stable the economy of their local municipality, state/province and country.

Bah. If this were related to tuition costs there'd be countries who long ago kicked our ass. Instead they're broke or started charging.

The Montreal protesters are just deadbeats.

[LGA]

After reading about the "students" that went after those that actually want back to classes, all I have to say is that if you were found to be one of those idiots you should be expelled from that university and banned from getting a post-secondary education within Canada. You wanna whine about tuition costs, have fun going broke paying for out-of-country education.

[CaptainCrunch]

You know, I've always thought that the business of strike breaking like in the 30's and 40's could be a growth industry.

Quebec could pay people to fake being students who want to learn to go sit in the class rooms, and when these rioters break in to threaten and intimidate wearing masks they can look forward to a few days in the hospital and a few weeks with their jaws wired shut.

It just blows me away that these protestors would rush into the classrooms of major universities in Quebec where they had an infamous school shooting.

That's a terrifying scenario for students who want to uphold their rights to go to class.

I don't have any sympathy for the rioters. When they decided to follow an avenue of violence they went from being legitimate protesters to criminals and punks and thugs, and shame on Jean Charest for even negotiating with them and giving them a reason to continue their temper tantrum.

If I was premier I would declare an emergency and request that the Military be sent in to enforce the law where the police refuse to do so.

Its easy to beat up lightly armed police officers with police cars that can go up in Flames.

Its entirely different to go up against a soldier armed with non lethal weapons, armored personal carriers and training in hand to hand combat.

Also for the Students that wanted to attend class, I would give them passing grades and full forgiveness on their student loans for the year. If they're in their last year, they don't need to take their finals, they just graduate.

[Azure]

I don't really have a problem with the government helping students out that preform well in school. Perhaps student loans should be forgiven to a certain extend if the student that applies for them graduates from post-secondary and stays in province holding down a good job for a certain amount of years.

I don't agree with 'free' education, but I do think we can always try to do better.

Many kids don't have the money to pay for the programs they want to get into.

[Jbo]

Quebec in general is the whiney, free-loading, little brother of Canada.

Feel free to call me out, but I have family out there, go out there about twice a year for work... and I love it in spite of itself. I've never seen a province get so much and still complain. And they do it all behind the guise of protecting heritage and language.

Now we have a group complaining about tuition hikes. My sympathy level? Zero. Nilch.

I'm all for the right to protest, but look at the rest of the country and stop acting like entitled brats.

/end rant

[GGG]

The government already funds a significant portion of education. When i was in school(99-04) tution represented 1/3rd of the operating costs of the university. So that means the goverment is paying for two thirds of the cost. In addition you get a tax credit for every dollar you pay in tutition which can be carried foward. So you get 15% federally and in alberta 10% provincially. So now we are up to the government paying 75% of the costs. If you hit max student loans the goverment.

If you are from a low income family the government will give you a grant of 250 per mont so 2000 per year. 800 per year for middle income. Tuition being about 6000 per year thats a 1/3 subsidy for low income and a 1/8 subsidy for middle in come.

So adding up all of the credits we get a low income family student has 85% of the universities costs to educate a student paid for, a middle income student 79% of the universities costs.

Is it unreasonable to ask a student to pay for 20% of the cost of there education and their living expenses? I think it is. Especially when the government hands out collateral free, reasonable interest loans to everyone to cover the remainder.

If governments do end up moving towards reduced or free tuition it should be one in the form of tax breaks after graduation so you only subsidize those that graduate and remain in Canada. If you go o Uni with a plan for your future it is the best 50k of debt you will ever accumulate. I probably make 80k more. Year than i would have without my degree. The best investment i have ever made.

This students strike is a lot like the sports league strike. The amount of money ypu lose by striking (a year of school plus a year of earning vs 1 season) can never be gained back. They are losing 1 year of peak earnings fighting over at most 10k. That doesnt make sense.

[Hack&Lube]

I think the real issue here is not how much of the bill the government is willing to foot but we need to see if the amount of money going to the universities and textbook publishers is good value. If what students see is only 25% of what the universities get in their pockets, just what is all that money going to? (not even including the hundreds of dollars paid for textbooks).

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Bend it like Bourgeois

The Montreal protesters are just deadbeats.

Good discussion.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Dogbert

As I understand it, a bunch of different groups protesting different things have been joining the tuition hike demonstrations to get their own opinions out there. Everything from anti-corruption and anti-war groups to anarchists and racists are showing up.

Frankly, though, it should be about tuition hikes. I know many people in Montreal and the majority are fully behind the government hiking rates and silencing the protests, but all of those people have never been to - or paid for - university. They don't get that it's not about THIS hike, but about all the others that will surely happen if students let this slide.

Exactly. It's like when the NRA says '#### you, grenade launchers are protected under the 2nd ammendment'; they don't really give a damn about grenade launchers, but they realize that if they agree to ban them, eventually they'll be trying to ban handguns. So they make a big deal about something stupid so that people will argue about that for then next fifty years and never touch the thing they're actually worried about.

The other side of this coin is smokers; smokers went from having the run of every indoor space to their own sections, to the bar, to outside, to 10meters way because they said 'yeah no problem we'll move.'

Quebec students are going the NRA route.

[Regular_John]

Brett Wilson (Of Dragon's Den Fame) weighs in on twitter:

W. Brett Wilson
‏@WBrettWilson
#QuebecStudents - 3 months of protests over $1,600 increase in tuition. Shake your heads kids - the real world is even tougher. #StopNow.

From my under read understanding here the key point of contention is a tuition increase of roughly $1,600-$1,700/year... spread out over a period of 7 years. For a yearly increase of about $250.

So even if we're talking current year 1 students, involved in a 4 year course, their looking an a total of an extra $750 for the remaining 3 years of their education.

There's a good chance I'm over simplifying here and missing a key point, but that seems like a fairly modest increase to me and it's spread out over quite a reasonable amount of time.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

...as education has gotten more expensive on a per student basis the government can't continue to just pump increasing money into universities and post secondary institutions...

Now, I don't know much about this particular case (and I don't have the energy to find out), I'm just going to ask this generic comment:

Is there a valid reason why education has become so expensive?

Yes, some technical fields might be getting more expensive, but there have been relatively expensive fields throughout the existence of universities. Are there more of them? What is it?

All western countries are richer than they were twenty years ago, give or take a few years. Why is it that for the last twenty years we have constantly seemed to afford less?

Also, a bit of student humour. Demonstrations in Quebec are apparently required to inform of the route to the police in advance.

(Not that crude, but I tagged it anyway.)

NSFW!

[GGG]

Has education really become that expensive or was it unsustainably cheap from post war until about 1990. I remember my Grampa saying that to go to university to pay tuition was his entire wage as a farm hand for the summer.

If you think of that as a $10 per hour job that would be $400 per week for 16 weeks. Which totals out to be about $6400 or about what tuition is now. He ended up farming after 1 year of school. Eventually I plan on looking up real numbers to see if theis annecdote is based in reality.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Itse

Now, I don't know much about this particular case (and I don't have the energy to find out), I'm just going to ask this generic comment:

Is there a valid reason why education has become so expensive?

Yes, some technical fields might be getting more expensive, but there have been relatively expensive fields throughout the existence of universities. Are there more of them? What is it?

All western countries are richer than they were twenty years ago, give or take a few years. Why is it that for the last twenty years we have constantly seemed to afford less?

Also, a bit of student humour. Demonstrations in Quebec are apparently required to inform of the route to the police in advance.

(Not that crude, but I tagged it anyway.)

NSFW!

Are you talking cost to students or the overall costs?

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by GGG

Has education really become that expensive or was it unsustainably cheap from post war until about 1990. I remember my Grampa saying that to go to university to pay tuition was his entire wage as a farm hand for the summer.

If you think of that as a $10 per hour job that would be $400 per week for 16 weeks. Which totals out to be about $6400 or about what tuition is now. He ended up farming after 1 year of school. Eventually I plan on looking up real numbers to see if theis annecdote is based in reality.

My dad went to school in the 60's and told me that tuition for a semester was less than 300 bucks (IIRC, which I think I do). It's never once come up that it was a financial burden for him to go to university. He worked in the summers at grunt jobs to pay for it himself.

It was nowhere near the equivalent of $12,800 a year (going by your estimate of $6400 a semester), which would be literally impossible to save up in four months of working a job a student can get.

I went to school in the 90's and don't think I ever paid close to 4 grand for tuition in a year. Has it really more than tripled in 12 years?

Edit: I looked it up, and tuition seems to be between 5 and 6 thousand a year.

[flylock shox]

The issue isn't just that degrees cost more than they once did, it's that they're worth less too. So whereas you might once have paid $8000 for a degree that was going to set you up for life, you now pay $30,000 for a degree that sets you up to go get another degree that'll cost you another $30,000, after which you're hopefully set up for life.

I've been dealing with lots of young law school grads over the past year who are just hooped by the job market right now, and I understand the situation's worse in Ontario.

I don't know what the solution is. Better vocational/entrepreneurial training in high school maybe? Get some of these kids out in to the work force earlier?

Beats me.

[Northendzone]

If the students are willing to accept limitations on their wages and agree to stay in Quebec for a certain number of years so they can pay a bunch of taxes back to the government, then cap tuition.