The University of Toronto law school's proposal to increase tuition by $2,000 a year over a five-year period has roused much criticism in these pages. It's time to reply.
Excellence in higher education requires that the very best students in the country be recruited to the school, irrespective of their financial means. Canada's best students are increasingly choosing to pursue their education in an international frame. My faculty competes vigorously with the leading international law schools to recruit the most talented Canadian students. Our capacity to attract them turns on our ability to mount a program that is second to none in the world.
We're pursuing this ideal by offering a challenging intellectual experience steeped in Canadian law and legal institutions that also takes account of broader international experience. As well, we're offering expanded ranks of professors, reduced class size, a distinguished international visitors program, new problem-oriented courses, poverty and public interest law initiatives, and numerous new international courses and placements.
Our capacity to deliver this depends on our ability to attract and retain the very best professors from Canada and beyond. We cannot ignore the yawning gulf that has emerged between faculty salaries in Toronto and our international peer group. At the top publicly funded U.S. universities, for instance, salaries for law professors are twice that of the University of Toronto faculty. This doesn't take into account the resource disparities elsewhere in the employment equation: pensions, housing allowances, secretarial and administrative support, and the quality of the schools' physical facilities.
The establishment of the proposed special faculty recruitment and retention fund (to which one-third of the proposed tuition revenue will be directed) will reduce the differential that exists with our peer institutions in the United States. At the end of five years, the salaries of our professors will increase -- but will still be, on average, only two-thirds the level of salaries offered by the leading U.S. public law schools. Nevertheless, we believe these increases will be sufficient to end the threat of outstanding Canadian faculty defecting to the U.S. in response to higher salary levels.
These enhancements will require additional investment. In the case of a university, the revenue equation is simple: money comes from government, alumni and students. One of the key constraints hobbling the formation of internationally competitive institutions of higher learning in Canada is systematic government underfunding. Governmental support for each undergraduate arts and science student or law student in Ontario amounts to about $5,300 a student; the state of Michigan invests three times as much.
It's essential that university administrators make the case relentlessly, creatively and passionately for increased public investment in Canadian institutions of higher education. Education is fundamental to civil society and critical to the economic, social, intellectual and moral well-being of our country.
But to compete effectively, increased private investment will be required as well. Consider the average tuition level charged at Michigan, Virginia and Berkeley -- the three top publicly funded U.S. law schools as measured by the annual U.S. News & World Report Survey: tuition averages at $40,700 for out-of-state students and $27,500 for in-state students.
These levels are far in excess of what the U of T is charging today, but also greater than the $22,000 that is being proposed in five years. Further support for the academic missions of these schools is derived from alumni-fed endowments averaging $312-million; Toronto's endowment is currently $60-million.
To safeguard accessibility, any tuition increase must be accompanied by a comprehensive and well-funded financial aid program for students. The seriousness of our commitment to accessibility is reflected in the portion of tuition revenue earmarked for financial aid. In sharp contrast to the 15 per cent to 21 per cent of tuition revenue typically invested by U.S. law schools (both public and private) in needs-based financial aid, the U of T law faculty will spend 30 per cent. Our commitment to accessibility is also reflected in the faculty's proposed monitoring of student accessibility on the basis of an annual independent review.
Canada has revelled in the excellence of our Olympic athletes. To settle for a bronze in higher education is simply unacceptable for the country we are, and for the country we need to be. Canada deserves institutions that are accessible and excellent. We can have both. Ronald J. Daniels is dean of the faculty of law at the University of Toronto.