Quebec Students: “Faire Leur Juste Part”

Simon Tremblay-Pepin, an emerging social policy scholar, has recently blogged here (in French) about Quebec tuition fees.

He points out that, when one adjusts for inflation, Quebec tuition fees are headed into uncharted territory. Indeed, contrary to some recent spin from the Charest government, Tremblay-Pepin makes two important observations:

1. When one takes an average of Quebec tuition fees over the past45 years (using constant dollars), current Quebec tuition fees are significantly higher than the 45-year average.

2. The tuition-fee increases being proposed by the Charest government would bring Quebec’s tuition fees to their highest levels ever.

The above observations call into question what the Charest government actually means when it asks today’s generation of Quebec students to “pay their fair share.” Or, as they say in French, “faire leur juste part.”