Opinion: Graduation a time of celebration and a time of concern
Congratulations to all our graduates. They have worked hard to reach this important milestone and deserve to enjoy this exciting and meaningful moment.
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Congratulations are also due to the parents who have provided both emotional and material support throughout their children's educational journeys — you share in these accomplishments.
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My youngest son is graduating from high school this year and it is a time of pride and celebration — and, more privately, concern.
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While there are many global concerns, a more personal concern has to do with the rising cost of advanced education. While students and parents wisely see post-secondary education as an investment in the future for themselves and their communities, the Alberta government has been seeing it as an expense to reduce.
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In 2019, the province began to dismantle public education and health care under the guise of fiscal management, following the recommendations of Janice MacKinnon's Blue Ribbon Panel on Alberta's Finances. This panel advised lifting the tuition freeze and reducing public funding for advanced education. In response, universities were forced to raise tuition to make up the shortfall.
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While we have all experienced sticker shock at grocery stores, the cost of tuition has risen even faster. Across Canada, between 2000 and 2024, consumer prices rose by 72.4 per cent, while undergraduate tuition and fees increased by 111.6 per cent (Statistics Canada).
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At Mount Royal University alone, tuition has climbed by approximately 30 per cent in just the past six years. As a result, many students now face food and economic insecurity, to the point that in 2024, 43 per cent of MRU students reported experiencing hunger due to financial hardship (2024 Canada Campus Wellbeing Survey). We now have food pantries for students where faculty are asked to donate canned goods, dry goods and toiletries for students in need.
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Just six years ago, tuition in Alberta was among the most affordable in Canada. At present, it is among the most expensive, and students and families are suffering amid the deepening affordability crisis. The primary reason is the defunding of higher education by the provincial government under recommendations of the MacKinnon panel.
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