Heard in the Hall
To Strike or Not to Strike?
Tuition fees are on the rise, so we thought we’d ask students how far they’d go to stop them from going up. We roamed the halls of ConU to see if students would support going on strike for the sake of affordable education. Here’s what they had to say about it.
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“[I would support] a peaceful strike. Tuition is already high for international students—we pay more than the Canadian students—and while I can arrange my budget, there are some people who can’t.”
—Mostafa Al Kotob
BA Engineering
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“I generally support the strike because international fees are already extremely low in Quebec. I think [the current fees] are something we should hold on to— and try to move more towards a European model. [The strike] has to give the message that the reason we don’t want our fees to rise is not because we can’t afford them, but because we value education as a right.”
—Michael Guay
BA Political Science
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“I would support [a strike] because even though I’m leaving the university, there will be other people that are going to have to pay the higher tuition rates. If it goes up, it’s never going to go down back to where it was. There’s not going to be many people left with the opportunity to go to university because of the tuition, and I would like other people to have the chance.”
—Kenyha Alcocer
BA Human Relations and Child Studies
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“If tuition goes up even more, it’s going to be even more difficult to pay for books and tuition. For sure I would support a strike.”
—Sandra Gomez
BA Human Relations
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“Tuition fees are already quite high for international students and if you were to increase them even more, many students might choose not to attend university because they won’t be able to afford it. It’s important that tuition fees are payable—even if there are student bursaries or grants, it’s still hard for the average student to be able to go to university. In today’s world, having a degree is so important to get a job.”
—Laura Stegen
BA Commerce
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“Yes, I would [support a strike]—I don’t want my fees to increase. We [students] should be more involved in order to keep tuition fees low so they don’t go up in the future. I guess if the tuition fee [hikes] are because of inflation, then I’m aware they have to increase, but if they are not, then I [would] definitely [support a strike].”
—Nabila Noor
BA Finance
