The Making of a Policy Regime: Canada's Student Finance System since 1994

Abstract

This paper examines the pattern of decision-making, lobbying, and influence that led to the landmark series of federal student assistance policies introduced by Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government in the late 1990s. The package of new initiatives—dubbed the Canada Opportunities Strategy—not only partially reversed an earlier period of fiscal restraint but also brought a new emphasis on direct forms of student assistance such as grants, bursaries, and tax credits. However, programs such as the Canada Millennium Bursaries and the Canada Education Savings Grants, despite their focused approach and innovative structure, came to be regarded as weak policy tools when measured against their ostensible goals of widening access to post-secondary education and efficiently targeting student assistance on the basis of need. The new policy regime also failed to fulfil nearly two decades of previous efforts by policy-makers to transform Canada’s student debt program into a systematic income-contingent loan program. We offer explanations of this pattern of policy inconsistency and incoherence by examining the awkward challenges of intergovernmental relations in the Canadian federal system as well as the fragmentation and competing goals now evident in student assistance policy networks. We contrast the student finance policy regime with the arguably more coherent set of research and innovation policies established by the federal government during the same period. We use policy network analysis as our theoretical framework, and we use data from our extensive interviews with higher education stakeholders and policy-makers to provide empirical support.

Looking Back, Looking Forward: Canadian Higher Education Research on Tuition Fees

“…In contrast to time-based repayment loans, income contingent loans are repayable when and only if a graduate's income meets or exceeds a certain threshold. This type of loan program has been adopted in a variety of countries since the late 1980s (Chapman et al, 2020); the history of Canadian policy discussions on this topic is covered in Wellen et al (2012). Stager (1996) addressed tuition fee policy questions directly through an empirical assessment of Ontario university data from 1960 to 1990, privileging the notion of return on investment.…”

“…Piché and Jones (2016) explored the policy debate about institutional diversity in Ontario, especially within the university system, focusing on issues of quality, accessibility, and funding. Finally, examining the federal policy-making sphere, Wellen et al (2012) analyzed several key federal policy histories, providing insights into intergovernmental relations, goal-setting, and policy formation. Finally, focusing on critical policy issues of institutional finance, Lang (2016) examined major government steering policy developments that affect questions of tuition and access.…”

Thawing the tuition freeze: The politics of policy change in comparative perspective

“…Actors identified as influencing decision-making in the United States include interest groups, coordinating bodies, institutional boards, legislature and legislative committees, and the state governor (Layzel and Lyddon, 1990;Lowry, 2001;Pusser, 2000). Canadian scholars have examined the influence of federal policy on post-secondary education (Fisher et al, 2006;Fisher, Rubenson, Jones and Shanahan, 2009;Shanahan and Jones, 2007;Wellen, Axelrod, Desai-Trilokekar and Shanahan, 2012) as well as forces influencing policymaking in different Canadian provinces (Axelrod, Desai-Trilokekar, Shanahan and Wellen, 2011;Axelrod, Shanahan, Wellen and Desai-Trilokekar, 2012;Jones, 1997;Padure and Jones, 2009). This study contributes to a small body of work internationally on tuition policy and politics (Sponsler, 2009;Warne, 2008) and of the Canadian politics of higher education finance and policy formation (Boggs, 2009;Jones, 1998;Rounce, 2010;Smith, 2010;Trick, 2005), increasingly of essential interest to scholars as well as advocates, practitioners, and policy makers.…”