Misconceptions over public education spending fuels tensions
The evolution of the student protests in Quebec the past few months has sparked a national debate much greater than the original aim of the movement.
At its outset earlier in the spring the movement’s raison d’être was a simple one: protesting an increase in tuition rates. Since then it has evolved into a debate about issues as fundamental as civil rights and the very role of government in modern society.
To me, much of the conflict boils down to the fallacy at the heart of the West’s most basic governance problem: the confusion of “government-funded” and “free.”
The demands of the student protesters amount to “free education for all.” By “free,” of course, they mean “government-funded.” One doesn’t require an advanced degree in public finance to know full well this is one and the same as “paid for by everyone else,” including all those millions of people who do not themselves pursue higher education. Yet despite its simple dismissal, the equating of taxpayer-financed with free endures in the public imagination.
No free lunch
There is no doubt that governments at all levels provide vital services that no one else can. Public goods ranging from roads to hospitals to property rights are the hallmarks of our modern way of life and are rightly financed through taxation. But none of these things is free. They are paid for out of the taxes that governments withhold from our paycheques and impose on our businesses and our consumption.
The supposition that something provided or paid for by the government is free because the end user does not pay for it directly is the fundamental fallacy that leads to deficit, debt, and in extreme cases complete state bankruptcy and breakdown. Those inclined to dismiss the latter as alarmist need look no farther than once-prosperous Greece for a modern-day confirmation that the unchecked conferring of “free” benefits brings utter ruin.
Education is in part a public good. This means that the benefits associated with higher education accrue not only to the person being educated but to society as a whole. This fact is indisputable. Public goods must be financed in part through taxation to reflect the fact that everyone benefits from them. This is why governments finance more then four fifths of the total bill for university studies.
Education pays off
It must also be remembered, however, that the student himself benefits greatly from a university degree. Statistics Canada data shows us that the annual income premium for a university-educated person is more than $30,000 versus an individual with only a high school education. Over an average career, that amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The student enjoys at least as much benefit as the taxpayer and arguably much more, and yet pays only about a fifth of the bill for his higher education.
And yet in Quebec it is not enough for the minority of students that insist on ever greater benefits and “free” education. At its heart the protest is about whether or not the Quebec and Canadian taxpayer will pay for 87 per cent of the students’ bills or 83 per cent. No matter what happens theirs will remain the lowest university fees in North America. That Quebeckers pay the highest taxes on the continent and face some of the steepest debt levels can be chalked up to the continued insistence that something the government pays for is “free.” It is not. In today’s world indulging in such demands is a very dangerous game.
Perhaps by the time you read this Quebec’s so-called “long hot summer” will have cooled somewhat. It is even possible an election will be contested over what remains an impasse between the government and the student movement, in which case one side presumably will have emerged over the other.
No matter the final resolution to the conflict playing out in the streets of Quebec, the notion that government benefits are free endures. The universal eradication of this misconception would be the most valuable education of all.
