PLATFORM: Alex Monegro, running for AMS President
Issue 1: Tuition
The cost of education in BC has increased dramatically since the tuition freeze was lifted years ago. This is symptomatic of the years of capital depravation that universities across the country experienced during the freeze. Many of the faculties at UBC experienced significant deterioration in terms of their staff, their infrastructure and their equipment. The BC government has not kept up with the financial demands of the organization and this is where we’ve seen a massive increase in the cost of education. We live in a world of limited resources. Most students at UBC are able to pay the cost of university. The biggest issue at the moment for most students is the unpredictability of how tuition fluctuates. Addressing this issue will be more realistic as it can be addressed at the Provincial level and is a goal that can actually be reached. As AMS President I am committed to:
1. Work to the university to the determine how their costs are growing and how that affects the amount of tuition needed to keep the quality of education high as the number of seats at UBC increase.
2. Working with student groups on campus and the university to build a proposal that can be presented to the provincial government in order to set tuition increases to a fixed percentage at predictable intervals.
3. Work with the provincial government to overcome issues that might be present in our proposal.Issue 1:
The candidate’s stance on UBC’s highly inflated tuition fees does not come close to addressing the fact that students feel a high burden when it comes to paying UBC’s tuition. Monegro mentions rather equivocally that “most students at UBC are able to pay the cost of university”, if this were true then student debt would not be at the highest level it has ever been and student loans would not be a critical necessity for MOST students in order to meet one of the highest tuition fees in the country.
The Sauderist has also mentioned that “The biggest issue at the moment for most students is the unpredictability of how tuition fluctuates”. NO IT IS NOT! Wrong again Monegro! The biggest issue at the moment for MOST students is NOT the unpredictability of fees but how to pay for them!
If Monegro believes that tuition fees are unpredictable he has obviously not been following the BoG’s past 5 adjustments to tuition fees, because if he were, he would easily predict that the next adjustment would be a rise of approximately 4 to 6% within a period of 15 to 27 months. Addressing the issue of predictability amidst mounting tuition fees would be missing the point or fighting for the easiest cause while the important and tough cause, the one which actually would contribute to the welfare of students, is cowardly ignored.
Monegro’s comment on the issue of tuition fees shows a deep lack of sympathy for student needs, a serious misunderstanding towards student issues and the proliferation of erroneous data as part of the candidate’s platform.
The UBC Student Media would expect that an international candidate would have sympathy for the high costs of education, given the astronomical price of a UBC education for international students.
As members of this university we can not allow this type of attitude to infiltrate to any level of student politics; especially that of the AMS President, who is supposed to show the greatest understanding for the student struggle, needs and interests.
Issue 2: Students with Financial Needs
Following with the point above, there are many students at UBC that are not able to pay for the cost of attending UBC. It is the university’s responsibilities, according to provincial legislation, to not deny anyone admission on financial based alone. However, we also should keep in mind that by eliminating the merit component from grants and scholarships we are doing students disfavour as there is no motivation to excel in the personal and academic realms. As AMS President my team will look at:
1. Working with the university to explore revenue sources such as mixed-market housing and other student friendly development on campus to establish more grants that are earmarked for students with financial needs without removing the merit component.
2. Explore different requirements in terms of merit for those grants that are earmarked for students with financial needs so that there are grants that are attainable to a variety of students.
Issue 2:
Monegro’s views on financial needs are an insult to all students struggling to meet tuition payments. His idea of maintaining the merit component of financial aid is a reactionary and elitist measure of selective assistance. Financial assistance should be granted to ALL students who need it regardless of their academic performance. Getting into the university is all the academic merit students need as to qualify for financial aid.
The Sauderist’s meritocracy would only mean that financial aid reaches the people who either have gone to the best high schools because they live in the richest areas, have taken expensive exams such as the International Baccalaureate (which is not offered in most public schools in Canada) or have spent large sums of money with private tutors and private high school fees. Students from modest backgrounds, who have attended decadent high schools with a precarious infrastructure, and, on top of it all, still had to work part-time to help out with household expenses, are the students who most desperately need financial assistance in university and would be at odds against receiving them according to Monegro’s plan.
The UBC Student Media cares deeply about student issues and student needs. Monegro’s platform rejects the struggle of student workers who must burden themselves with the UBC academic workload as well as the hard hours of a part-time job to pay for the highly inflated tuition fees. The UBC Student Media in conjunction with the the United Student Resource and the Union of Student Workers at UBC have come to a common conclusion that Monegro’s platform is disrespectful, elitist and insensitive; this type of politics has no room in the student plight and should therefore be collectively rejected by those concerned with the well-being of UBC students and student-workers.
Monegro at the last AMS Council meeting has already started fighting for ‘his’ AMS. He complained that there should be privileged access for councilors at Pit nights (Wednesday debauchery). He argued that allowing councilors to jump the line and get in was a privilege he was not willing to give up. The current VP Finance Chris Diplock proposed a motion to get rid of the privilege and it was voted down. Avneet Johal from the AUS as really concerned that someone running for AMS President would make the Pit privilege an issue.
The International Baccalaureate exams are by NO means “expensive”. The program itself requires a standard set of fees (which are quite reasonable given the program’s length) but IB Students, unlike those taking the Advance Placement exams, do NOT pay to sit IB exams.
Please correct the error.
Categorizing IB with “the richest neighbourhoods” and “private tutors” is also misleading. The program is neither exclusive like that of private schools nor draws children whose parents have fat wallets. It’s simply an academic program that has an international focus and community-oriented approach to learning.
This post you disagree with was written by an ex-Sauder student who actually went to an IB school and took the tests to get to UBC. In South America, to attend an IB school, one would spend around 1500 US$ per month in tuition (times 12 months).
Dear Phoebe,
Thank you for your feedback, however you must get your facts straight. The IB fee has an $88 fee per subject, the full IB has 6 subjects + TOK and the Extended Essay (as well as CAS), hence the per subject cost would come to $528
Please check this website:
Click to access ib%20payment.pdf
Furthermore, the schools which desire to take the IB exam must also pay application and continuation fees, these fees are then washed down to the students, each student pays a fixed rate of this fee and it varies depending on how many students sit the exam and how long the school has had the program for.
Click to access IBAEM2008-2009fees.pdf
The IB has also an annual fee for each school which comes to $ 10,980 in Canada. Therefore, a small public school in a rural setting is very unlikely to afford the IB program as this fixed fee is divided amongst the number of students who take the exam + the application fees (if the school does not have the program) which are divided into two parts of $8,500 each + the $88 fee per subject.
http://ibo.org/programmes/services/annual/
I invite you to become more informed about the IB program Phoebe, because if you do not see the clear and strong correlation between wealthy schools and the IB program you have definitely much to learn about the schools that offer the IBO’s services and the majority of students who take its exams across the world.
Thank you,
UBC Student Media
One more thing,
Check out this website, it is a common fee assessment for the two years of the IB program, the total cost PER STUDENT comes to $1,338. If you believe this is not expensive then you do not share the problems of the average UBC student who is $27,000 indebted.
Here’s the website:
http://www.isp.edu.pa/ibisp/ibdiplomafees.htm
You have also made a comment that the AP fees are less expensive than the IB fees, you are wrong again Phoebe. The AP fee is $86 per student and there are no fixed fees for the schools nor are there application fees, there are also government initiatives to subsidize the AP fees for low income families since the College Board is a not for profit educational association between universities across the USA and have, therefore, federal and other sources of public founding, unlike the IBO which is a private international organization.
Please refer to this website:
http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/cal_fees.html
The UBC Student Media welcomes your comments.
Dear UBC Student Media,
I appreciate the feedback. Looks like I have a lot in common with the post author. I’m a current Sauder student who “actually went to an IB school and took the tests to get to UBC”, so I do have some merits in my comments.
The secondary school usually takes the burden of the IB operation fees. The Dublin Jerome High School paged you linked me is not representative of how IB operates at every school world wide. Several schools in the Greater Vancouver region do not charge students fees by the subject and no doubt the same applies elsewhere. Students who take different numbers of exams are also not charged different amounts at said schools.
Now, back to the intent of my original comment – the so-called correlation between the IB Program and wealthy schools. First I have to protest this sweeping generalization. Let’s take Vancouver as a case-in-point. The two schools here that offer the full International Baccalaureate Diploma or any IB courses for that matter are both public schools. Neither are situated in the wealthiest areas of the city (I believe Uhill, PW, and PG take that title). Neither rank in the top five according to the Simon Fraser report on secondary schools. THAT title went to Crofton, York House, LFA, and St. George’s – all private schools charging tens of thousands in tuition. Who, then, make up the demographics of the IB Schools? The answer, in general, is students from middle class backgrounds who wanted a wholesome, global education.
There has not been, to my knowledge, a study done studying the precise correlation between wealth distribution and the establishment of IB schools (throw geography in there as well). That would be quite a fascinating study.
I realize we have both greatly deviated from the original purpose of this post, which was to analyse Alex Monegro’s presidential platform. But the point is, the IB schools in the Greater Vancouver region (which are rather large feeder schools to UBC) are in general not schools associated with families who have huge mansions, fancy cars, and six figure incomes. Such an association devalues the abilities of IB students who survived (haha yes survived, what a ride!) the program. I do concede that this may not be the case outside of North America, or even BC (fancy international schools in Shanghai) comes to mind.
One last thing. You mentioned that CB is a “not for profit educational association” unlike the IBO. According to your second link, IBO is a “non profit … foundation”. On their website the wording is along similar lines, a “non profit educational foundation”.
P.S. – I find this amusing: I spent the last two years writing an infamous IB blog chronicling my journeys through the program with plenty of rants and cynicism. Goodness me!
P.S. – I find this amusing: I spent the last two years writing an infamous IB blog chronicling my journeys through the program with plenty of rants and cynicism. Now I’m defending it. Goodness me!
Haha, I’m one of you guys as well. Richmond High. Diploma. God.
Thank you for your comment Phoebe.
Your analysis of the way Vancouver schools run the IB seems accurate and the UBC Student Media recognizes it. However, it is important to inform you that the manner by which the IB is run in Vancouver schools, which is quite admirable, is not the standard but, unfortunately, an anomaly. Outside of Vancouver things are done very differently and you do not have to venture all the way to Shanghai to notice that, in fact the IB is seen as an elitist program in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, where only a very very small minority of students take the program offered by a limited number of private schools that can cost up to 5 times the price of a UBC education. However, it is not only in poor countries where the IB is seen as elitist, in France and Germany (two countries which hold one of the 4 official IBO languages) the program is only offered by expensive private schools. In France, most high school (lycée) students sit the “Bac Français” or simply “Bac”, a public exam administered by the French Ministry of Education, the French Government does not subsidize the high IB fees (since they already offer the “Bac” free of charge) making it a privilege of the expensive private/boarding schools. The expensive IB fees in these schools is then washed down to the students on top of the unitary subject fees.
In Latin American and African countries the situation is even worse, where the cost of the IB exam is so high (because the number of students sitting the exam is low) that students are often forced to abandon the exam before sitting it due to lack of funds.
My point is still valid. Your arguments revolve around Vancouver’s exemplary way of running the IB program, but simly because you are an IB grad and so are many people in Sauder, it does not mean that the exam is common throughout Canada and UBC. Most students take only the Provincial exams and no other supplementary ones such as the IB or the APs. Small public schools in rural settings across Canada and the United States rarely offer the IB or AP exams due to their high fees, if these exams were more viable, i.e. cheaper, there would be no barriers and all schools, regardless of their size, would offer them. Why do you think not all schools offer the IB program? That is why I said the IB is an elitist and expensive program, perhaps not in Vancouver, but I was not basing my comment solely on Vancouver but on the world.
Finally, I never said the IBO was a for-profit organization, I know that it isn’t, I have visited its headquarters in Geneva and am well acquainted with one of its representatives and its operations (especially in South America), all I said was that the College Board has PUBLIC funding from the Federal American Government and the American states which have public universities on the board, something the IBO does not have. This public funding factor allows the College Board to provide direct subsidies to American students from low income families for exams such as the APs and the SATs, something the IBO does not do.
Phoebe, honestly, the IB program was one of the greatest academic investments I made so far and I am glad to have “survived” it as well as being fortunate enough to afford it (given the astronomically unreasonable fees I had to pay). It was through my performance in the IB that I was offered a scholarship to attend UBC and the opportunity to live and study abroad, and for that I am deeply thankful, however, it would be too hypocritical of me not to recognize that IB grads do not represent the average student in Latin America, Asia, France, the US and not even at UBC.
Going back to the point of this post, I would believe that an international student like Alex would be more sympathetic to the absurdly high tuition fees at UBC (especially for international students which is now over $20,000 for 30 credits). His platform was a disappointment and the issues of student debt and high tuitions were not properly address by the candidate’s propositions.
Cheers and thanks for your comment.
Jeremy was an IB grad? Were you a douche back then too?
The IB program is inherently elitist due to its screening process. It’s a rigorous academic program that’s more or less built to screen out people that do not fits its standards so while the GVRD IB schools do not discriminate on a financial basis they more or less do so on the basis of intellectual capacity. This pretty much makes the program elitist no matter how you slice it. Honestly, I don’t even know why everyone has their knickers in a twist about this. Elitist programs are great by virtue of the fact that they recruit capable individuals and put them in a superior learning environment with better resources. This does a good job of allocating our resources to the brightest and away from those on the rung of the intellectual ladder. Sure it sucks that most of these discriminate on the basis of wealth but that’s how the world works. Suck it up and quit complaining when people call the program that you’ve graduated from elitist. That just makes it all the better. Relish it.
Intellectual capacity or grade point average? There is a difference. While the former cannot be quantified, the latter is a simple statistic. The statistic in question is highly correlated with socio-economic status (ses). ses in turn is highly correlated with race and gender.
Relish is for making hot dogs taste better. Do you know what they put in hot dogs? The same thing they put in elite schools.