As always, it is an honour to rise in this House to speak on behalf of the residents of Parkdale–High Park, today to Bill 166, Strengthening Accountability and Student Supports Act.

Our post-secondary institutions are at a breaking point, and this is because of decades of Liberal and Conservative underfunding. That didn’t happen overnight. This has been years in the making. Action on this file is long overdue, and we need serious and sustainable solutions to address this crisis. This bill that the government has brought forward just doesn’t meet the moment.

We value our world-class post-secondary institutions, and we know the positive impact they have on staff, students and surrounding communities. The Ontario NDP is committed to ensuring that everyone who lives, works and studies at a post-secondary institution has the support they need. That is why we’re calling on this Conservative government to immediately commit to serious and reliable funding for colleges and universities and strengthen oversight to end the exploitation of international students.

I’m going to talk a little bit about what’s in this bill. The bill requires public colleges and universities to have a student mental health policy that describes the programs, policies, services and supports available at the college or university. The minister may issue directives specifying the elements to be included in this policy and the steps the minister intends to take if the institution fails to comply. The policy would have to be posted on its website, reviewed at least once every five years and reported annually to the board of governors on the implementation and effectiveness.

I agree, we need to have student mental health policies, and I think many or most universities and colleges have a student mental health policy. What they don’t have is the funding to provide the support and services to the students. We know from data we see year after year that the demand for mental health supports is increasing.

Speaker, in my first term in office, when I got elected in 2018, the first bill I tabled in this House was to ensure that every child and young person had the right to receive access to timely mental health care. The bill proposed that, for any young person, basically 24 and under, if a mental health support was identified as being needed, they would get access to it within 30 days. This was an ask from Children’s Mental Health Ontario. It was part of the Kids Can’t Wait campaign. It was a fully costed plan. And, Speaker, when that bill was brought before this House and debated and voted on at second reading, it actually received unanimous support. But then, after that, the bill languished at committee. The government refused to take any action on it.

Already it was too late to be taking action because the wait-lists were growing and wait times were getting longer. But even if we had taken action then, we are talking about four or five years of work that would have already gone into ensuring that everyone, especially young people, have access to timely mental health care.

This bill also requires public colleges and universities “to have policies and rules to address and combat racism and hate, including but not limited to anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Black racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.” Again, the minister may issue directives specifying the elements of the policy and the steps the minister intends to take if an institution fails to comply. This policy, again, would have to be posted on the website, reviewed at least once every five years, and reported annually to the board of governors on the implementation and effectiveness.

Speaker, again, it’s very important to have policies, and we support that. We want to ensure, and we must actually ensure, that every student, staff—anybody—in post-secondary education feels welcome and that it’s a safe learning and working environment. But we need to make sure that our action as government, and particularly with this Conservative government, is not limited to just policies on paper, that there is proper funding in place to ensure that action can be taken.

Finally, it enables the minister to issue directives to colleges and universities specifying information to be provided to the public about costs associated with attending the institution, such as the ancillary fees, cost of textbooks and other learning materials.

It’s very, very important that this bill was tabled as part of a package of announcements that the government made following a report that came out in November, the blue-ribbon panel report—and, of course, the federal announcement of the cap on international study permits.

So, that package that this government announced in March—just last week—includes extending the tuition freeze for Ontario students for at least three or more years while allowing institutions to increase tuition by 5% for out-of-province domestic students, funding totalling just under $1.3 billion over three years. There is regulation to allow the minister to grant applied master’s degrees and the commitment to engage with colleges and universities to create tuition fee transparency.

Now, all of this is important, but I think that, again, it goes back to how for years students—important stakeholders within post-secondary education—have been ringing the alarm bells when it comes to the crisis. And the actions that I just outlined really are very, very small steps when it comes to addressing the scale of the crisis, which is why, as I said earlier, this bill does not meet the moment. The response to a crisis has to be able to solve the crisis or at least, at minimum, make a significant dent in the problem. But this does little— very, very little.

Speaker, let’s not forget that the post-secondary institutions are in a financial crisis for a number of reasons, starting with chronic underfunding. Ontario’s per student operating funding, which is really the bulk of the funding from the government, is well below the national average. This has been the case for decades. The Liberals underfunded post-secondary institutions and under the Conservative government, this current government, that funding has decreased even further. Of course, the government has talked about freezing tuition, but has not actually provided the funding to replace the revenue lost from tuition. I agree: We need to reduce tuition. Tuition should not be a barrier to attending a college or a university. But we need to provide the supports to offset that, and that has to be done through increased investments—increased public investments, I should add, because what we do not want is privatization in our public institutions, in our post-secondary institutions.

Of course, as for everyone else and in all sectors, inflation has been an issue. Higher Education Strategy Associates estimates that, accounting for inflation, the stagnant government funding and the tuition freeze have meant that Ontario’s public colleges and universities have lost about 31% of the funding, of the government-controlled revenue or the funding that the government provides, since 2010. That’s a huge figure: 31%.

Of course, as a result, what has been happening is colleges and universities unfortunately have developed an overreliance on international students. Post-secondary institutions have become dependent on international students. This actually started and ramped up under the Liberals and, under the Conservatives, it has skyrocketed. The Auditor General reviews both colleges and universities. I think multiple reviews have included warnings about this, again, over many years, but the government has failed to act on the AG’s recommendations.

I do want to acknowledge here that this growth in international students is happening across the sector. Of course, it’s not limited to private career colleges or public-private partnerships, but it is disproportionate in the private career colleges and public-private partnerships. In fact, international students at private career colleges that are partnered with the private colleges have seen skyrocketing increases in enrolment. I think some of the graphs that show the percentage of the increased enrolment have been shared around on social media, and it’s just unbelievable. There’s one—I don’t want to name any institution right now—but it’s an increase of 600% when it comes to international students.

Speaker, as you can see, the underfunding of our post-secondary institutions has led to a lot of other new problems as a consequence of the underfunding. What the government has announced in terms of this “historic funding” really is a drop in the bucket. It’s far from solving the crisis, but it does not even make a significant dent in the problem.

Don’t take it from me, Speaker. Let’s listen to what stakeholders had to say about this legislation. I’ll start with OCUFA. I’m going to quote directly from OCUFA’s statement: “The Minister of Colleges and Universities recognizes that we are facing a funding crisis, but the gap between what has been provided and what is needed is massive.” That’s from Nigmendra Narain, who is the president of OCUFA. They go on to say, “This is a one-time drop in the bucket.” As well, “The solution to the chronic underfunding of Ontario’s universities is simple: political will to make a true investment in per-student funding to get us up to the Canadian average.”

The request from important stakeholders like OCUFA is simply to have enough funding to be at the Canadian average, because right now, Ontario is dead last, and we have been dead last for many, many years.

I will add to that and say we should make it a goal to be the best. We want to be leaders. Investing in post-secondary institutions, investing in our students, in the supports and services—and in providing that funding—has huge economic benefits. It pays for itself and more in the long term, so it is extremely important. As OCUFA has said, at the very least we need to be at the Canadian average.

Another stakeholder, Council of Ontario Universities, goes on to say, “The sector will continue to adapt and evolve to better serve students and find even more innovative ways to drive greater efficiencies, as outlined in the sector’s efficiency update. However, the funding gap is just far too large to close through efficiencies alone. Ontario’s universities remain committed to working with the government on a longer-term solution to fix a broken funding model that is impacting all universities, so that they can continue to support student success and create the highly skilled talent and innovation our economy needs.”

Speaker, they go on to say, “We are calling on the Ontario 2024 budget to provide the additional multi-year base funding as recommended by the panel.” They’re of course referring to the blue-ribbon panel.

I don’t have too much time, but I do want to include the voices of students. First maybe I’ll share reaction from the workers, particularly CUPE.

Actually, before I go on to that, Speaker, I do want to state in the House that since the government tabled this bill, the past number of days, CUPE 3903, representing contract faculty, teaching assistants, graduate assistants, research assistants and part-time librarians and archivists at York University, has been on strike, and we all know why, really. In fact, it’s not a surprise. The low wages that CUPE 3903 workers experience do not come near to protecting workers from the skyrocketing inflation, the cost-of-living crisis. It is really heartbreaking when you hear that university workers—the workers who are really carrying a big percentage of the burden of teaching and the day-to-day operation of our classrooms and of the universities and colleges—have to rely on food banks to survive, and also have to work multiple jobs to survive. What kind of message are we sending to Ontarians? But also, what kind of message are we sending when it comes to what we value as Ontarians?

Speaker, I was quite surprised to learn that, in fact, it’s been a trend. A lot of the teaching assistants, the graduate assistants, they not only are now making up a larger percentage of the faculty, they’re now actually doing more than 50%—they teach more than 50% of the courses, and they are the precarious workers of our post-secondary education system.

I only have two minutes left. I did want to make sure I included voices from the students, so I will share a quote from the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, who were here just recently as part of their lobby day. They say that—they go on to add some of the things that they welcome, but they really want to make sure that a lot of the funding need that exists on campuses when it comes to mental health services is focused. They’re appreciative that there’s some action on this, but of course, a lot more needs to be done.

Speaker, I’ll just end by saying that there are aspects of the bill that we support, but to truly address the crisis, what is needed is funding. So I urge the government to make the investments to have a world-class post-secondary education system in our province, to not only show that we value that and that we want to support students and faculty and everybody as part of the sector, but that this is something that is going to benefit us all.

It is now time for questions.

I thank the speaker very much for your remarks on this bill; it’s an important one.

There are a number of elements to this bill that I think are so supportive for post-secondary institutions: the sustainability fund, which provides underlying support for the sector, working with universities and post-secondary institutions—to work with them on their operations to make them work toward long-term sustainability; the tuition freeze, such a benefit for students; and, of course, the work on the mental health element for student support.

My question to the member is, isn’t this a wide range of measures that you could see supporting through this bill?

I thank the member for his question. As I stated in my remarks, there are certainly steps that have been taken in this bill that are addressing concerns that have been raised by stakeholders, especially students; however, so much more needs to be done. At the end of the day, we can have amazing, strong policies in place that are posted on the website and that everybody is aware of, but it doesn’t mean that in reality anything is changing, because the funding is lacking.

If we don’t increase the funding, what is essentially going to happen is that more supports and services, even the existing ones, are under threat and at risk for cutting.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Donna Skelly) Further questions?

Thanks so much to the member from Parkdale–High Park. I love the fact that she focused on the experience of international students.

I’ve spent a lot of time with Conestoga students in my riding. One student from India told me that she came to Ontario to learn, to gain experience, to build Canadian relationships. She didn’t come here to learn online.

Can you imagine, Madam Speaker, coming here just to learn online? I hope we can all agree that this is wrong.

Alex Usher, who has been a very vocal voice, obviously, on post-secondary institutions, says that—that of declining domestically sourced funding, because of Liberals and now this Conservative government, you’ve now offered only $700 million over three years in new public money, and about a third of what its own panel recommended.

To the member: How do you think post-secondary institutions are going to cope with this chronic and institutional underfunding going forward?

Question?

I recognize the member for Don Valley East for further debate.

I want to thank the member from Parkdale–High Park for her contribution to this discussion. Students, before coming to Canada to do their studies, I’m sure did a lot of research before deciding to come here. And they have seen a lot of great things that are here that can well fit into molding their careers into better global citizens. Bill 166 is a major win for students and post-secondary transparency across the province.

I’m worried that members of the opposition may choose to vote against this bill. I want to remind the House that this additional transparency for students—

Students have a responsibility for their education, and that means they need and deserve to know exactly where their hard-earned dollars are being spent. One of the three aspects of Bill 166 deals with matters of basic transparency around costs associated with ancillary fees, the cost of textbooks and other materials.

Speaker, can the member inform us on how they plan to vote on Bill 166 and if they support transparency in student fees in our post-secondary sector?

I thank the member for his question. I’ll say two things: One, I think your time would be better spent worrying if you’re actually doing something to help students. Again, as I shared reaction and thoughts from stakeholders, I have not heard a single stakeholder call this bill, as the member called it, a massive win—no. In fact, we’re hearing the opposite, that the government has finally decided after, again, decades of inaction—not just under you, the Liberals and you, but it has gotten worse under the Conservatives for sure. This is a small step. Even the funding is a drop in the bucket. There’s a lot more that needs to be done.

In this day and age, you need a master’s. It’s the minimum you need—a bachelor’s for sure. Certainly, I don’t want to—I’m not talking about the trades. There is obviously that pathway as well. But I’m saying, in terms of—

But when it comes to—

It’s an honour and a pleasure to rise in the chamber today to speak about Bill 166, the Strengthening Accountability and Student Supports Act.

At face value, this bill is about three things: combatting racism and hatred, increasing mental health supports and services, and then increasing cost transparency. You’ll forgive that I’m a little bit skeptical about the government’s actual intention to deliver on these promises when, for example, on the issue of racism, we have a government that, immediately on taking power, slashed racism funding.

You’ll forgive me if I’m skeptical about a government that says it wants to fight anti-Semitism and Islamophobia yet, when given the opportunity to pass the Our London Family Act, chooses not to do so.

You’ll forgive me if I’m skeptical about a government that wants to introduce more mental health services and yet has been underfunding our primary care and health care system, leaving many people without access to a family doctor, which is for most people their main source of mental health care.

Finally, you’ll forgive me for being skeptical about this government’s interest in cost transparency when, under this government, the term “transparency” has become an oxymoron.

Furthermore, this bill is on the background of, currently, our province being dead last for funding post-secondary education, dead last for supporting operating budgets and dead last for contributing a fraction of our GDP on post-secondary education. Now, why is that and how did we get here? Because immediately on taking power, this government started hacking away at colleges and universities. They cut OSAP by 40%. They eliminated the six-month interest-free grace period for students for repaying their loans. They capped funding for domestic students; consequently, right now, there are 20,000 students in public universities for which those universities receive no public funding.

Because our universities and colleges are suffering, because 10 of 23 universities are currently running a deficit because they can’t balance their books, international student admissions have gone up under this government by 82%; and this government has opened the floodgates to private career colleges, with there presently being over 500 of them.

For a government that wants to address mental health challenges, let’s take a moment to reflect on that. Because what we know is that amongst international students—again, I remind you that international student rates have gone up dramatically under this government—we have an epidemic of mental health challenges. We have an epidemic of international suicides right now.

Not only will I point out that these numbers have gone up under the government; I will reiterate my skepticism that this government is interested in doing anything about that because if they were interested, then this bill wouldn’t just touch on public colleges and universities. It would be sweeping enough to ensure that there are mental health supports for students in private colleges and in career colleges, but it’s not. So even if and when this passes, even with the investments from last year, there will remain an epidemic of suicide amongst international students at private colleges and career colleges in our province.

So let’s recap first how we got here in the first place: deliberate underfunding by this government, limited domestic students’ access to post-secondary education because they capped that, the slashing of OSAP, and then they’ve allowed subpar, private diploma mills to take hold in our province. This bill does nothing to address that.

Now, we know a week ago there was an announcement of $1.3 billion to supposedly stabilize colleges and universities. The government’s own task force to look at that, the blue-ribbon panel, the panel that looked at the crisis we have in the post-secondary sector, gave sweeping recommendations that this government is refusing to implement, one of which was an infusion of $2.5 billion and the best that the members on the other side could come up with was barely half of that. This legislation is entirely inadequate and does not come close to meeting the needs of the post-secondary sector.

This bill could have been an opportunity to fix the shortfalls of their underfunding, to give our institutions the support they need, also recognizing that every $1 spent on post-secondary education brings back $1.40 to our province’s economy. This is not about spending; this is about investing.

Now, let’s actually dive into the content of this bill. We should first acknowledge that universities and colleges in this province do have mental health and anti-hate policies; they’re just not properly funded. All this bill does is propose to place a great degree of power in the hands of the ministry, but it implements no requirements to seek input into what those directives should be—not from colleges or universities and not from students or faculty. Mental health policies, anti-hate and anti-racism policies are for helping vulnerable and marginalized groups. They deserve solutions specifically built for those communities, not just handed down from the ministry. So I ask, will the ministry commit to speaking to all affected groups before handing down those policies?

You’ll forgive me for saying, yet again, that skepticism is a central theme of my remarks today for a government that proposes to want to support marginalized, vulnerable and under-represented groups. Let’s not forget that just about 24 hours ago, on the eve of International Women’s Day, they chose to silence the independent female members of our caucus. So how can this government be trusted to wield the power of issuing directives supposedly in support of marginalized and vulnerable communities when they’ve proven time and time again that they fail to do so and use their power in a harmful manner?

By giving the government so much control over universities and the ability to issue directives unilaterally and without consultation, if done poorly, it could also hamper the abilities of universities to act autonomously, and they should be allowed to act autonomously. Their policies and priorities are extensively vetted by governing councils, which include professional students, faculty members and a variety of other members who represent universities and colleges. If done poorly, it will not achieve its intended goal of fighting hatred and racism, and I fully acknowledge and support the ambition for all of us to fight hatred and racism in all of its forms.

We can all agree that mental health and anti-hate are great initiatives and should be strongly supported by every member in this House but, as ever, this government has a habit of pointing fingers at others rather than doing anything themselves. What we hear when we talk to colleges and universities is that policy directives are not what they need. They need actual support. It’s long past time that this government put their money where their mouth is. For example, this government announced money to mental health supports in the form of a mental health app. That’s great. But when a student is in a mental health crisis, what they need is in-person support from a competent and well-funded mental health team. That takes money—again, not policy directives—and this government has not done their share to support that. When students are feeling at risk from hate or racism, universities need more than policy. They need more than words. They need funding for counsellors, for wellness spaces and for all of the wraparound supports.

We value our campuses as safe venues for expressing ideas, but it takes resources—money—to build in the safeguards to bring about those environments. For example, it takes money to hire constables to keep everyone safe on campus, to keep everyone on campus safe during protests, demonstrations or sit-ins. It takes money to bring in campus security for longer hours. For students to feel safe and supported, it costs money.

As it stands, post-secondary institutions in the province are already not receiving enough funding from the provincial government. The recent announcement by the Minister of Colleges and Universities for an investment package of $1.3 billion falls far short of the recommendations set out by the blue-ribbon panel on colleges and universities, which required $2.5 billion over the next three years.

Additionally, a key point is that the $1.3 billion that has been promised is merely a one-time injection. It does nothing to ensure the long-term sustainability of our institutions. It gives universities and colleges no ability to plan their futures, and therein is the key failing. The blue-ribbon panel’s report was on the sustainment of our post-secondaries—not seeing them grow and thrive, just sustaining. It’s the bottom line, the bare minimum, that this government is still failing to deliver. Our institutions desperately need ongoing and reliable support from the government to offer the services that Ontarians need them to. Colleges, universities offer so much to our province and their communities, and it’s a shame that our government cannot see them as the investment that they are.

As a result of this shaky, unreliable support, we are seeing the consequences. As we speak, programs have closed in Guelph, at Queen’s, TMU, Nipissing, University of Ottawa, Laurier, Saint Paul, Western, Trent, Brock. These are strong universities that should be confident in their ability to offer world-class programs, but this government’s half measures have left them unable to offer the education that Ontario students want and need.

Madam Speaker, I want to use the last of my time to draw attention to the beginning of the bill. It reads, “This section applies to every college of applied arts and technology and to every publicly-assisted university.” What’s noteworthy in that is what is not said. There are hundreds of private career colleges in Ontario that are entirely left out of this bill, hundreds of colleges for which this government is paying no attention to their mental health challenges, no attention to the proliferation of hatred and racism, no care whatsoever, likely because putting those requirements on private colleges would be cutting into their profits.

While I’ve spent my time discussing the shortcomings of the bill, I can say, of course, it is essential to support the expansion of mental health supports and the expansion of measures to fight against hatred and racism in all of its forms. But I’m baffled why this government would decide to exclude around 45,000 students from these standards. These colleges have the lowest level of regulation in the industry, and that seems to be continuing under this government.

As I reflect on what is offered in this bill, it is incredibly superficial. It skips the underlying challenges that our post-secondary sector faces. It doesn’t come with the necessary, substantial infusion of funding that is required in order to fight hatred and racism in all of its forms and to deliver the mental health supports that our students need.

For as long as students are struggling to make their next rent payment, struggling to make their next tuition payment because OSAP is so desperately underfunded—no matter how many policy directives come down from the Minister of Colleges and Universities, we will continue to see mental health challenges and we will continue to see our colleges and universities stumble from month to month, year to year. They deserve better. I thank you for your time.

Questions?

I thank the member for his remarks on this. I was listening to your comments about the challenges that students are facing and certainly understand those challenges. I’ve got three boys. They’re post-school now, but when they were going through it it was a big burden. Frankly, it’s even more challenging these days, arguably, with the housing that you mentioned.

Looking at this bill and seeing that it’s freezing tuition fees for several more years after the benefits that have been there already, including a 10% reduction—I look at those benefits and say that those are very important benefits for students. My question is, really, don’t those benefits allow you to look at this bill and say, “Yes, I’d like to support it and support students as well”?

My question is to the member from Don Valley East. Finally the government is addressing some of the long-standing post-secondary issues that this Conservative government really has been ignoring. It’s not enough, but it is actually a start, and this is true. It’s been five years of neglect; that is also true.

But it is also true that the sector had been neglected by the previous Liberal government as well. The leader of the Ontario Liberals has not made any commitment to freeze tuition. Certainly there is no commitment to lowering them, as of yet. Could the member from Don Valley East elaborate on tuition fees and the importance of committing to lowering them within the perspective of how students are struggling after nearly a decade and a half of neglect?

I want to thank the member for his comments today.

I know that when going to university, I always felt it was a house for freedom of expression. You got to be who you wanted to be and to really say what you wanted to say. So I know many members of our House were alarmed when we saw that at the federal level, MP Charlie Angus tabled Bill C-372, which is a private member’s bill that seeks to prescribe jail terms for speaking well of fossil fuels. Do you know what? I’m not here to discuss the potential uses or harms associated with fossil fuels, but I’m incredibly concerned by the Orwellian rhetoric of the opposition’s federal cousins. We’ve seen an onslaught against free speech in the public domain and at our province’s universities.

Bill 166 aims to bolster free speech at our universities. Will you vote for free speech or will you send students to 1984?

I thank you for the question. I fully support the tuition freeze. However, what I want to highlight is that at a time of an unprecedented affordability crisis—we know rents have gone up; this government has abolished rent control, for example; the cost of living has gone up; groceries have gone up—what hasn’t gone up is the amount of student assistance. In fact, as I referenced in my earlier remarks, the amount of OSAP has gone down by 40%. And even if you qualify for OSAP, that OSAP comes largely in the form not of grants, but loans. Again, as I mentioned, those loans no longer have a six-month interest-free grace period.

So our students need substantially more support. The tuition freeze is part of that, but I would be looking for vastly more, specifically in terms of additional financial support and increasing OSAP as well.

I see that you’re encouraging me to think back even further in history. I think something that’s often lost in the narrative is that, once upon a time, there was an NDP government in this province. During that period, post-secondary funding was last of all of the provinces in this country.

Interjection.

What I will tell you is that free speech is sacred here. We know that our post-secondary institutions are a bastion of free speech, and we need to make sure that they are safe places. We’ve seen a wave of various kinds of hatred and racism. We’ve seen anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism. We’ve seen hate speech directed to the LGBTQ2S+ community as well, and anti-Asian, anti-Black and towards women as well. So while we fight to ensure that there are safe places for us to speak freely, we do also want to make sure that the protections are in place so that students can study safely and focus on their studies.

If you’re asking will I support increased mental health supports, will I increase initiatives that will provide more funding to university and college students so that they don’t have to live hand-to-mouth, of course I will support initiatives of those types. The main crux of my criticism here is that this bill doesn’t come even close to going far enough to support our post-secondary sector and the students who will be the foundation of our economy going forward.

Thank you to the independent member for his comments. Under the Liberals, students would be paying more for less. The Liberals opposed performance-based funding, opposed a freeze on tuition and supported increasing tuition. So my question is: Will the Liberals again oppose strengthening accountability and student supports?

Thank you to the member from Don Valley East, and particularly for the reminders about the cuts to actual funding supports for domestic students.

After my PhD, I taught for 11 years in a university, and I’ve certainly seen the increase of international students and the stresses that they’re under, and the exploitation that they’re experiencing. We have an institution that’s based on the exploitation of international students and the exploitation of the existing talent of the graduates of those very same institutions who are precarious workers. That includes library and support staff.

Now, I doubt that the government intends to be transparent about this aspect of how universities are being supported, but I know that when students learn about the exploitation that underpins their education, they’re really shocked. They’re really upset. They’re asking themselves, “Do I want to be part of this? Is this what it means to get an education?”

So my question is, what do you think the message is to students and Ontarians when our post-secondary institutions are based on exploitation?

I thank you for the question because I think it’s particularly prescient. When you talk to international students, they know that they are the piggy bank that is funding colleges and universities. It’s heartbreaking to hear from them that they were sold on a dream and a promise from faraway lands that they would be able to come here, settle and start a new life with hope for prosperity in the future. When they come here and realize that their tuition is orders of magnitude higher than domestic students and that the promise that was made to them can’t be delivered upon, it tells them that their individual dignity does not count; it tells them that they count for nothing more than what’s in their bank accounts.

The only thing that they should be focusing on is their education and how they can settle their roots here and give back to our country and our economy.

Further debate?