What are you paying for?

As a result of a global pandemic, students are facing an unprecedented material strain. Some students will not be able to return to classes this fall, and more will be forced to bear increased student debt. Many students are justifiably upset that the University of Toronto has refused to lower tuition in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Not only are students put under economic hardship by this decision, but the measures chosen by the University administration have taken something valuable away from the education that this institution provides. The move to online classes and the end of student life as we knew it has robbed the student body of something that the administration will make them continue to pay for. In light of this, I’ve begun to wonder: what is the value of the higher education that students pursue at UofT? What is this extra something that we’re paying for in addition to our degree? Knowing the history of an institution can give you agency over its future, so let’s turn to the history of the University. The University of Toronto takes after two model institutions, each associated with its own set of ideas about the purpose of higher education: the Medieval University and the Liberal Education (specifically inflected through the English College), and the Humboldtian University and its General Education.

Medieval Universities, like the University of Bologna founded in 1088, were institutions which existed to produce certain kinds of professionals—namely priests, lawyers, and medical doctors— educated all their students in a wide curricula. Students who pursued a Bachelor and then Master of Arts degree studied the Seven Liberal Arts: grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy. Of course, they also learned Latin, without which they could not understand the required readings or even speak to their teachers. After receiving this education, students specialized in Theology, Medicine, or Law. Since 1088, the idea of a Liberal Education has expanded and gained greater nuance. Today, degrees in arts and science are awarded, and scholars—such as Mortimer Alder, a former chairman of the Encyclopedia Britannica’s board of editors—argue that the broad subjects studied under the Liberal Education produce well-cultivated individuals who can think freely while also possessing practical knowledge and skills. Our university’s breadth requirements, which require science students to take arts courses and arts students to take science courses, is an homage to the idea of a Liberal Education. The division of the student body into Colleges also recalls this institution’s medieval inheritance from English Universities and their College systems.

The 19th century Prussian intellectual, Wilhelm von Humboldt, created the model of the University that we know today. Humboldt’s ideal is an institution which creates knowledge (about language, physics, chemistry, history, etc.) while concurrently training professionals. Humboldt’s professors both taught and conducted research, broadening their field of knowledge as they instructed students to do the same. The model stresses not just that students read (as was the Medieval tendency), but that they research as well. Since the 1800s, the Humboldtian University has undergone a greater degree of professionalization, producing engineers, computer programmers, and finance industry workers in addition to professors and scientists. The Humboldtian model also sought to provide students with a General Education, that is, an education of universal value. The experience of reading and research is meant not just to teach skills or instill knowledge, but to produce well-informed, upstanding citizens. We see Humboldt’s influence on the University of Toronto in students’ independent research projects and our faculties of business, engineering, and computer science.

The General Education and Liberal Education models suppose that, through either a holistic combination of research and studies or a broad curriculum, higher education instills certain virtues in students, produces good members of society, and builds character. And whenever we talk about becoming this sort of person, we are not talking about something that can be taught through a course of study or memorized from a book. We are talking about a way of being, a way of understanding and responding to the world, which can only be built from lived experience. Here is another thing you may hear about Higher Education that is not exactly General or Liberal, but speaks to both perspectives: going to University is about the University Experience. This experience is presumed to be more than just academic; it includes engagement with the campus community, building relationships among students and faculty, and being responsible for your own success. The University provides the academic context in which a mature, independent person will emerge, with more than just a degree that vouches for practical prowess. If you are upset that you’re paying full tuition, yet won’t attend classes in person or frosh events or meet friends in the same way, you are upset that you’re being charged for an experience and an opportunity to grow that you’ve been promised, but can’t have.

 The 2016 Canadian census reported that 28.5% of Canadians aged 25 to 64 possesed a Bachelor’s degree or higher. Of roughly every 10 Canadians, only three receive the “General” or “Liberal” Education that is supposed to make a good citizen. So, what about the rest? Are they barred from being well-cultivated, well-rounded people because they pursued a college degree or no degree at all? Higher Education is supposed to be valuable to everyone, but is accessible to few people. This conundrum makes more sense if we look at the English College more closely. Oxford and Cambridge were places where young aristocrats learned not just Latin (and later Greek), but also the taste, the style, and the culture that they were expected to have as aristocrats. The character that the College builds is class character. A diploma was purported to be a guarantee not just of skills, but of being a good person; however, what it truly appears to be is a sign of membership to an exclusive social group. What I mean to suggest is not that Higher Education is worthless beyond the skills it teaches, but that there is an unsavory elitism embedded within the institution. I am firmly committed to the idea that education is valuable beyond career opportunities, but that value is not to be found in club membership, either. Another commitment of mine, which I referenced above, is to the idea that knowing history is liberating. Understanding all the ways in which value has been ascribed to an education should make you aware that you are free to determine what your time in this institution means. Undoubtedly, you are here for your self to develop. You can be an agent over who that future-self will be, or you can accept the course that has been presupposed for you by history. So, consider the question, turn it over in your head: what is the worth of my education? My hope for you is that you’ll find an answer eventually and become committed to something beyond the practical and beyond class: a person you expected yourself to be?