Tuition fighters hold AGM, nobody comes
By Michal Tellos
News
Editor
September 30, 2009
“Drop Fees, education is a right for all,” a slogan that cannot be missed on signs and post cards around the university.
The drop fees coalition, a small organization of willing students fighting for the end of tuition hikes, held their annual general meeting last Thursday.
The drop fees campaign was designed to make students aware of their important role in the fight against increasing tuition.
The purpose of this campaign is “not to bash the university, but to get students informed and mobilized” said group chairperson Lauren Quinn, a post-graduate of the university now attending the faculty of education.
“Students are misinformed,” she said.
The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) is an organization that provides students with an effective and united voice.
CFS is the lobby group behind the campaign enabling students to speak up and take charge. It is made up of over 500,000 students from more than 80 university and college students' unions across Canada.
The University of Windsor is among a large group of Canadian universities lobbying to have their voice heard by premier Dalton McGuinty when he makes plans for the tuition framework of next year.
Quinn doesn’t believe that tuitions hikes will cease without mass student involvement.
“Usually when tuition fees rise it is because the government is supplementing less funding, which in turn forces students to compensate by paying more.” She wants students to be aware that “the rate tuition is increasing is even greater than the rate of inflation.”
At this rate, soon students will be paying more towards tuition costs than the government is.
Quinn says that the money is there, but the government is just mismanaging the funds. Also, she verifies that the idea that students hold about tuition increase being a result of a better education is false.
“No. Big no. If you look at last year, tuition rose 4 per cent for returning students, 8 per cent for new students and there were 4 per cent budget cuts across the board. Students are essentially paying more money and getting less.”
The meeting that was held in the CAW Centre Thursday had a disappointing turn out.
The turnout in no way represented the number of postcards that are still being collected by the group, now up to 80,000. “Our goal is to get 100,000 post cards collected” said Quinn. The post cards act as a petition in allowing students to show their support.
Students can also show their support by attending a student Day of Action to drop tuition fees on Nov. 5.
“The more students the more media attention” the group added.
Meetings are held every Tuesday at 4 p.m. in the CAW Centre with a doors-open policy. To get in contact with a group representative, you can email drop.fees.windsor@gmail.com or join the Facebook group “Drop Fees End Poverty.”
For more information on the CFS campaign in general, visit their website at dropfees.ca.
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