Education is a right?
...then who is responsible for providing students with free education?
10/20/11
If only tuition to UBC were free.
I, for one, would like that very much. Not only that, I’d enjoy my university experience even more if the textbooks were free as well. And if I’m completely honest, I’d prefer not paying for my food either. Free lunch in the caf, anyone?
Unfortunately, as they say, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Someone’s got to pay. And, as a student, I have to pay for both my lunch and my tuition. But is that fair? Should I have to pay as much as I do to attend university?
According to the Canadian Federation of Students (to which every student on this campus belongs), students have to pay more than they ought. They point to the rising levels of student debt, and the decreasing levels of government funding. All yearly increases in tuition—currently capped at inflation (2%) for domestic students—are to be resisted. The slogan and rallying cry of their cause: “Education is a right!”
Now, I have no problem, in principle, with questioning how much we have to pay as students. Who wants to pay more than is fair? If someone tried to charge me $20 for a hamburger, I’d tell him... well, “No, thanks.” But I wouldn’t yell in his face, “Fast food is a right!” and demand a lower price. That would be absurd. That said, a university degree isn’t a Big Mac, and a right is not a dietary preference.
However, when we demand our university education as a right, that changes things. Significantly. In fact, claiming it as a right makes our university education something that we are owed according to the principles of justice, for that is what a right is. A right is a just claim to something: in keeping with the principles of justice, each is given his or her due. But it strikes me that there is some confusion in this use of “rights” as applied to our education. First off, all rights are not equal. A right may be either positive or negative. Negative rights—like the right to free speech—require nothing of others. If someone wants to speak his mind, I don’t need to lift a finger. I simply let him speak. Positive rights, by contrast, place obligations on others to provide the right. If education is a right, someone is morally obligated to provide it to us.
This raises the very important question: Who, exactly, must provide us with an education? The government? Well, that means they have to pay for it—the cost of buildings, professors’ salaries, and so on. And where does the government get their money? Quite obviously, most of it comes from taxpayers. That means, in part, the working families of BC and Canada are obligated to pay for your education. (By the way, they already pay for a large chunk of the cost. 49.2% of UBC’s revenues in 2009/10 were from government funding; read: taxpayers’ pockets.)
Also, if our right to an education places the burden of paying for it on others, how far does their obligation extend? Most of us have been educated for free from kindergarten through grade 12 in the public school system. How much more education should others have to pay for? Your bachelor’s degree? Your master’s? Your Ph.D?
I’m aware that education has what economists call a positive externality. It has more value to our society than just the value to the individual being taught. For example, the more doctors Canada has, the better off we all are. And this is at least part of the reason that government already heavily subsidizes our education. We all benefit from having intelligent, skilled people fixing our teeth, designing our roads, and, closer to home, teaching our classes.
But, those dentists and engineers and professors are rewarded for what they do. And chances are we will be for what we do, as well. Our potential future earnings are higher than those without a university degree, which makes our degree an investment. Also, UBC has limited seats. We were admitted. Others weren’t. So shouldn’t we be willing to foot at least part of our bill, instead of insisting that others—including those who didn’t have the privilege of being admitted—pay for it?
If we are going to make demands for lower tuition, we should set aside the rhetorical language of rights. It isn’t honest, and it places unfair demands on others. And if an education is really as valuable as we are claiming, why shouldn’t we be willing to make some sacrifices and work for it?
1 comment
Ron Chu on Jan 25, 2012 at 7:29am
Good point about negative rights and positive rights. Of course, it is not only working class taxpayers by which the money for universal education could come from. What about taxing corporations and the extremely wealthy more?
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