Ontario needs to support its students by scraping the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) – May 26, 2019,
Do you know why cars are so expensive? Because people are willing to go into debt to buy one, do you know why smart phones are so expensive? Because people are willing to go into debt to buy one, Do you know why mortgages are so expensive? Because people are willing to go into debt to buy. Do you know why education is so expensive? Because students are willing to go into debt to attend one! If you’ve ever been to countries without student loans, typically education costs are lower, it’s actually the loan that makes tuition costs rise.
Some Smart Phones that are now selling for $2000+, these smartphones still only cost about $100 to make, the reason for the price inflation revolves around silly things people do like buy a smartphone on a tab plan, thereby permanently increasing their cell phone bills to purchase a depreciating smartphone, the new thinking behind increasing your cell phone bill to get the new smartphone is that it saves the individual from spending the $2000 now, for a phone bill that only increases a few dollars a month, sure in many instances these people still have to put some money down on the smartphone, but they feel smarter for not buying the phone at the inflated price, upfront.
Well, because people are willing to lease, finance smartphones with tab plans or whatever, what ends up happening is an entirely new infrastructure for smartphones is born, which revolves around inflating prices for almost everything related to the purchase of your smartphone and the entire scheme is built around people who are willing to go into debt to purchase an electronic item with 2000% mark up. Well, it’s a very similar scheme with the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP)
Prices students are paying revolve around OSAP and the worse part in all of this is that many students are drowning in debt and graduating college with a diploma or degree that they can’t use to be employed or start a business. This is cruel, now sure there are medical professionals and Engineers, etc. who graduate and have no problems finding a job, but there are more people graduating not using their diplomas than there are people who graduate and do use their diplomas and this is a huge cause for concerns because those bills are getting higher and higher and Ontario is getting closer to a student loan debt crisis and what’s actually fueling this are the colleges and Universities, which by the way are for-profit institutions.
If a student gets a social science degree as an example or an arts degree with a student loan they’ll most likely never be able to pay back, what do you tell these indebted adults when their 40+ years old and still unemployed or unemployable? Do you know how many people in their late 30’s and are still living at home with mom and dad, this isn’t normal, this can’t continue, this is an embarrassment on our educational system.
Doug Ford is actually going easy on the teachers, if it was me, I’d abolish OSAP, people used to pay their way through college easily and they’d have an apartment of their own, this is very unlikely today because of the high cost of living that revolves around debt. Housing is expensive because some government person deemed it a wise idea to lower the barrier of entry into the housing market, CMHC and other government derived agencies assisted more people and businesses to purchase housing and property using debt, so guess what happened to housing prices all over Ontario? Prices went up, of course, there are now more incentives to build condos then there are to build rental housing, for students, so guess what, students now have to pay more money for rent, so even if a student were to work while going to school, now that student would still find him/herself in lots of debt.
Now, what I will say regarding Doug Ford is that I think his plans are little short-sighted because the real problem with Ontario is the Federal Government and the Bank of Canada manipulating the economy. Prices are distorted in Canada and most of the price distortions revolve around the Federal government’s involvement in the economy. As was the case, Kathleen Wynne straddled Ontario with a lot of debt, but on that note, it’s important to remember the cost of housing and energy are controlled in most part by the Federal Government. My proposals have always been to shrink the size of the Federal Government, equalization payments is a guarantee that being a productive province will equate to productive citizens being financially penalized, to pay for Provinces like a Quebec with a massively sized expensive to operate public sector.
Now, Doug Ford is, of course, doing what he thinks is right and I commend him for what he’s doing, but Provinces in Ontario should get the lions share of taxes and should be held responsible for their inefficiencies. Unfortunately, that isn’t the current reality and it’s not something Andrew Scheer is even proposing, part of the reason why I’ll be voting for the People’s Party of Canada revolves around what the Conservatives won’t do, which is have an honest discussion about shrinking the size of the Federal Government. Canada isn’t a warmongering country like the United States, we’d be wise to take a similar approach that Switzerland takes.
Put more power into the municipalities, put more power into the hands of the province, shrink the size of the Federal Government, do you know who the Prime minister or President of Switzerland is? Of course, you don’t, do you know why? Because their Federal Government is small, Provinces and municipalities have to be held responsible for the mistakes they make in Switzerland, so their provincial and municipal leaders, do a lot less lying to the people they serve. Sure crazy ideas are proposed in Switzerland, but when these crazy ideas are presented, they’re often exposed for their buffoonery. In Canada, stupid politicians can promote their stupid ideas for years.
Our system allows the municipal and Provincial leaders to lie, currently John Tory is doing a door to door campaign to stop Doug Ford’s cuts, the reason John Tory does this is that he’s overpromised, he made promises to voters he knows he can’t keep and truth be told, this happens all over Ontario, mayors, and other political leaders intentionally making promises to voters they can’t keep in which they then put blame on a politician in a higher position then they’re in. These liars can’t be exposed, because in reality they’re being given an allowance, which they often spend unwisely.
With OSAP, funding for many of these Colleges and universities often get overinflated every year, prices get pushed up unjustifiably because these institutions know free money is coming, furthermore, there’s little reason for these institutions to reject big government programs which actually make students come out of college in even more debt and there’s little reason to lower non-tuition ancillary fees. Prices go up and up because money is coming from the government no matter how efficient or inefficient the institution is run and being that students don’t really understand that these loans are going to follow them around possibly for their entire lives, students are drowning in debt at early ages which are causing many of them to live very hard unfortunate lives.
This can’t continue, an economic crash is on the horizon and I commend Doug Ford for at least trying to do something about it. Unfortunately, I’m at the stage now, where serious changes have to be done to the Canadian economy before it’s too late. Although things appear to be running smoothly now, the future outlook for the Canadian economy doesn’t look as rosy.
Interesting times ahead.