The Current Policy

The AMS’s current policy on tuition ^[1] was passed on November 21, 2007, in preparation for a federal by-election in Vancouver Quadra. (Stephen Owen had resigned his seat to work for UBC.)

The way the policy is structured is as a set of 17 principles, divided into 4 categories: Tuition and Fees, Core Funding, Student Financial Assistance, and Research. It’s a modest document calling for, among other things:

* working with UBC, student societies and governments towards a long-term funding strategy
* opposing tuition increases greater than the British Columbia Consumer Price Index (CPI) or the Higher Education Price Index (HEPI), whichever is lesser
* controlling tuition at the provincial, rather than institutional level
* no differential tuition for out-of-province students
* working both with UBC and independently to lobby the province for more funding

Deconstructing the question until there’s nothing left, behind the jump.

Whenever there are tuition increases, usually only one of these 17 principles gets cited:

Tuition and Fees, Principle 3: The Alma Mater Society acknowledges the financial pressures of inflation on the cost of education and tuition levels. The Alma Mater Society shall therefore oppose any tuition increase that is in excess of the British Columbia Consumer Price Index (CPI) or the Higher Education Price Index (HEPI), whichever is lesser.

This is the specific clause that has been at the centre of much of the debate around the AMS’s tuition policy, and which has been creatively interpreted to mean the AMS does not object to tuition increases. As has been pointed out ad nauseum, the allowed increases under this principle actually represent a tuition freeze in real dollars ^[2].

The format of the document, as a set of principles rather than commandments, was deliberate. It was meant to be a framework, vague enough that anyone can work within it and executives could push it in different directions depending on their priorities. Unfortunately, this very broad policy was misrepresented in a very narrow way during the fallout from the UN complaint in order to muddle the debate and mobilize students. The lack of an up-to-date policy manual where people can be directed to certainly did not help matters.

The Question

“Should the AMS actively lobby for reduced tuition fees and increased government funding?”

First note that reduced tuition fees and increased government funding are two related, but ultimately separate concepts that have been lumped together for the purposes of this referendum. The first half of the question aims to get the AMS to lobby for reduced tuition fees, which is something that is not addressed in the current policy. Fair enough.

The second half of the question, on increased government funding, is completely unnecessary. Lobbying for increased government spending is already something supported by the AMS in the current policy:

Core Funding, Principle 1: The Alma Mater Society shall work in collaboration with the University to actively lobby the Provincial Government to obtain budgetary increases for the post-secondary education system of British Columbia.

(…)

Core Funding, Principle 3: The Alma Mater Society shall also work independently to secure higher core funding for post secondary education from the province.

Whoever wrote the referendum question either did not bother to read the AMS’s current tuition policy in its entirety, or strategically chose to ignore these clauses to make the question look better and the AMS look worse. The fact that half of the question is redundant makes an excellent case for the parts of the student court referendum ^[3] surrounding setting up a system for proactive referendum question validation.

Practical considerations

Nobody is entirely sure what happens if the referendum passes. Presumably it would be interpreted as an external policy and would co-exist alongside the current policy. The two policies don’t conflict, and there is nothing that would suggest that the current policy would be repealed or replaced. If anything, it would make the already-broad tuition policy framework a little bit broader, giving execs another possible direction to go in.

What needs much more careful consideration is how the existence of such a policy would actually be acted upon. A policy cannot exist in a vacuum without some sort of feasible strategy to act on it. Effective lobbying of government is not an area where the AMS has shown strength in the past little while. All of the candidates in this year’s VPX race have said they’ll lobby (except for Aaron Palm of course, who will just buy a bunch of guns), but have not said anything about how to do it, and to do it well. Without a real strategy for effective lobbying, obsessing over the policy side of things is pointless.

The current policy is moderate, and avoids taking any extreme positions. However, a policy calling for reduced tuition actually makes it difficult for someone to take a moderate approach to the problem. Reduce tuition by 10%? 20%? 50%? Reduce tuition in real dollars? CPI minus a cent? Tie it to some factor like mean income in BC? Defining the basis for the proposed reduction would be difficult and communicating it would be even more difficult. Instead, the easy way out is to take the most extreme stance, namely, that all tuition should be free.

Bringing the AMS’s tuition policy to referendum was spearheaded by Blake Frederick, Tim Chu, and the AMS resource groups. (Regardless of what you may think about them personally, an objective review of Tim’s job performance this year would show it is poor, but unfortunately outside the scope of this article.) This extreme position that all tuition should be free is one Blake and Tim have already shown to be perfectly happy having the AMS adopt. In fact, it forms part of the basis of Tim’s re-election campaign this year. The point they’re completely missing is that while there are few people that would object to free tuition, even fewer people would think this is a realistic proposal to put forth.

Taking extreme positions carries a very high risk of alienating others (see: Greenpeace ^[4]) and can make it less likely that any sort of compromise will ever be possible. ^[5] Engaging in negotiations will be futile if the bridge that must be built to connect both sides must span an entire ocean.

The AMS’s UN complaint was based on the principle of free tuition; even if it fell within the AMS’s tuition policy, and even if council had approved it, a human rights complaint to the UN over tuition is still not an effective lobbying strategy ^[6]. While on the surface it may seem that there is no possible downside to passing this policy, it does hold the potential to hinder, rather than help, the AMS’s ability to lobby realistically on tuition issues.

Discussion on tuition policy and the scads of research available about it could go on for pages. But trying to analyze tuition policy issues any further is fairly useless since it’s unlikely something voters will be thinking about critically. (If someone would like to explain why international student enrolment has a direct relationship with international student tuition, that would be extremely enlightening.) Blogs and media can write for pages (as we have) but ultimately this question will be decided on much simpler terms. Everyone already knows how they personally feel about tuition. Everyone already knows how they’ll vote. But is this empathetic approach to drafting policy really what’s in the best interests of everyone?