Canada’s economic stability hangs in the balance as the nation’s youth becomes saddled with student debt.
Free tuition is not only
beneficial to young students, but necessary for the continued sustainability of
the country’s social programs such as pensions, subsidised housing, and
healthcare.
A
recent study commissioned by the Royal Bank of Canada
showed that Government funding for university education fell from over eighty
percent in 1980 to less than fifty percent in 2018. Tuition fees tripled within
the same time frame. These steep increases in student expenses mean that younger
generations are having to increasingly rely
on student loans and part-time
work.
As more students carry the
burden of ever-increasing debt, this burden is in turn passed on to the
country’s economy. Young debt-addled students will often delay
life milestones such as purchasing a car, getting on the property
ladder, saving for retirement, or having children.
With children being born
later, Canada’s population is aging. As the 2016
census shows, 5.9 million Canadians are over the age of 65, whereas
5.8 million Canadians are under the age of 14. Canada’s population is becoming
increasingly dependent on social programs to support its aging population, yet
without this population these services would likely not exist. It is thanks to
the high percentage of government funding to university funding throughout the
1960’s and 1970’s that the education system produced many individuals with the
foresight to create the social programs they would come to depend on.
With an aging electorate and
parliament, a situation is being created where a generation of educated
baby-boomers are steering the county’s economy toward the social programs they created,
and benefit from, while the nation’s youth are left to fend for themselves. Today’s
youth, however, are not being given the same break that was afforded to the
post-war baby boomers. Millennials are often criticised for being too dependent
on hand-outs, but with nearly fifty years of decline in government investment
in education, handouts have never been fewer.
In recent years, debts
of over $25,000 for a bachelor’s degree are becoming common. As
ex-students struggle to repay their loans, investment in the country’s economic
infrastructure becomes weakened when less is spent on housing and large
purchases. This in turn makes it difficult to fund social programs when
national spending is reduced.
For Canada’s economy to
continue to thrive, government investment in education is necessary. Free tuition
not only means that former students can immediately contribute to the country’s
economy, but also that more young people carry the knowledge which is required
to maintain the social programs that were created by those who benefited from
near free education before them.
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I think this is a great article. It is very well written and I enjoyed how you focused on the facts. Specifically I enjoyed when you discussed how not only are student loans hard for students, but also it is hard on the economy because so many people do not have the money for large purchases. I also found it interesting how you brought up that millennial's are criticized for getting hand outs, but with the lower funding from the government, hand outs are actually a lot less.
ReplyDeleteGreat article, Andy. Very strongly written, with a sound argument. I enjoy how you incorporated a compare and contrast style argument with different generations to express your opinion. I agree with the notion of the government needing to invest in students, and the return will follow in the contributions to society and the economy.
ReplyDeleteGreat article!