Is education a right of a priviledge?

Most people would say it is a right. Everyone should be able to be educated to have a better future.

With today's tuition increases, education has no longer become a right, but instead a priviledge. Only if you are able to shell out an obscene amount of cash are you able to be educated. Meanwhile other students, or should I say the less well off are getting an education, but are graduating with an enormous debt load.

The question I ask, and I am sure that many others have asked themselves the same question over and over again. How is that fair? Does that mean only the wealthy are able to get an education? Basically that is what it has come down to.

The main reason I decided to enroll at a community college was because it was cheap and the quality of instruction was excellent. Some would say better than university level.

My first year at NBCC Woodstock, in the 1995-'96 school year, I paid a total of $800 for tuition. It was that same year that the government of New Brunswick decided that it had to start increasing tuition costs so community colleges could keep up with universities.

It was decided that tuition costs throughout the NBCC college system would increase by $400 every year till it reaches a peak of $2400 in the year 2000.

Why is this topic coming up at this time?

Well, January 27, 1998 was declared Student Protest Day across the country. Thousands of students in different parts of the country spoke out against rising tuition costs.

Students from Toronto started a protest at Western University that morning and 150 occupied a bank in downtown Toronto later in the day.

Another question I have to ask is why even bother trying to compete with universities? Why not keep tuition at a flat rate of lets say $1200, to attract more students. Instead, the costs keep rising and as a result enrollment keeps going down. Again I say, only those who are able to afford it are able to get a decent education.

Proponents to the tuition increases say that in order to show that you are willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead in the world, you must endure some sort of debt load.

What kinda of solution is that?

Once debt loads start accumulating, a student is no longer able to concentrate on what they are studying. Instead they are worrying about how the heck they are going to pay off the tens of thousands of dollars they owe. Believe me, as a student, there are more important things to worry about.

If things aren't fixed soon, the CFS have said that they will go after large corporations who aren't paying back taxes. Why should these companies go on without paying taxes, while students suffer in the form of higher tuition rates? It just doesn't make sense.

That is why I was glad to see the student occupation of the bank on CBC News. How else are students going to get their point across?

Students have to to right to the source, the banks, who are mostly responsible for loans, loan payments and even interest rates. They should also go to provincial and even federal members of parliment and tell them that students have the right to be educated and that they have had enough. The buck stops here.

Some solutions that the CFS have come up with include a national tuition freeze, a shorter term of payment when the time comes to pay off a loan and finally lower interest rates. A national system of grants from the government has also been a suggestion.

Most of those solutions probably won't make of off the drawing board, but something has to be done quick before the future of this country, the students of Canada, are no longer able to afford to go to college or university.

The future of the country lies in the government's hands. If they want this beautiful country to have a future, they have to start listening to the future.