Free university education not just a francophone thing

By Nadia Hausfather. The two-day summit on higher education will end today, and yet even before it started, it appeared the governing Parti Québécois had already decided on the outcome. In recent weeks we witnessed a strange ballet. While higher-education minister Pierre Duchesne said free university education would not be discussed because it is a long-term “ideal,” not “possible” in the short term, Premier Pauline Marois pretended all possibilities would be explored; all along, though, the government was clearly aiming for indexation.
The Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) of Concordia University agrees with Duchesne (and the Liberal Party of the 1960s, which promised it) that free education is the ideal — but we think we should start working toward this goal now. We will be participating in this afternoon’s student demonstration to make that clear. Is free university education fiscally feasible? Read more...