With the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) election season in full swing, it appears no slate has made an anti-tuition raising campaign a main priority in their platform documents.
While discussions about transparency and more student opportunities are needed and encouraged, the topic of lowering tuition has been swept under the rug.
Lowering tuition is often only mentioned in these discussions when slates are debating whether they should work collaboratively with the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) on anti-tuition raising campaigns.
But the CFS is not the only way we can have active discussions and campaigns about lowering tuition.
CUSA must make it a priority to have an active campaign for lowering tuition since Ontario students pay the highest rate to attend post-secondary institutions in the country.
The last time CUSA made campaigning for lowering tuition rates a priority was in 2011 with the “Drop the Fees” campaign. Since then, tuition in Ontario has risen from $6,316 in 2010 to $7,539 in 2014—an increase of about 20 per cent— according to Statistics Canada.
While the CFS runs active campaigns on lowering tuition, CUSA can choose to launch its own campaigns combatting the same issue, as they did with other campaigns pertaining to mental health and sexual assault.
It is time for us to have active and open discussions about the rates we pay as students to attend university, with or without the CFS.
