NEWS
Monday, February 23, 2015 21
Tuition
» continued from page 4
Breakdown of Ancillary Fees Paid by
JD Students
centrally collected
ancill ary fees
per jd student
Athletics/Recreation
$277.38
Cultural and Special Services
$192.96
Counselling
$132.66
Student Care (Capital)
$138.28
Faculty Government
$60.00
Osgoode Career Centre
$40.00
Osgoode Bursary Fund
$25.00
Student Centre (Operating)
$10.00
Salary Expenses
Faculty Administration
(Deans’ Offices)
$75,408
Faculty
$12,146,610
Contract Faculty
$1,743,405
$19.50
Osgoode Law Journal
for 2014/15. This will change in the next few years:
under a new budget model, each faculty department
will be responsible for its own facilities.
Community and Legal Aid
Services Program (clasp)
$7.94
chry (Radio Station)
$4.50
Excalibur (York Student
Newspaper)
$4.00
Ontario Public Interest
Research Group (opirg)
$3.00
The Centre for Women and
Trans People
$3.00
Obiter Dicta
$3.00
Osgoode Yearbook (collected
by Legal and Literary Society)
$191,780
Research Staff
$1,517,151
Support Staff
$10,123,406
Other Salaries
$1,077,663
total
$26,875,423
are rough estimations at best.
$3.00
Sexual Assault Survivors
Support Line
Teaching Assistants
$2.10
World University Service
of Canada
total
Salaries – $14,765 – 63% of Tuition
By far the largest expense on the Osgoode budget
is salaries: $26.9 million. Faculty salaries make the
largest expense at over $12.1 million or 32% of total
revenue. Next is support staff salaries, including student services and administrative support at $10.1
million, or 27% of total revenue. Contract faculty,
which includes the many adjunct professors, is a relative small expense at over $1.7 million or 5% of total
revenue.
Undoubtedly, Osgoode’s high tuition can be largely
attributed to its large faculty. Osgoode’s faculty is currently at fifty-eight members. Dividing total faculty
Number of Professors on Law Faculty
$0.90
l aw school
no. of professors
listed on website*
Toronto
927.22
government mandates, sixty students received bursaries in various amounts. Overall, more than $2.2
million were distributed.
The Rest? ($19,303)
Simply put, $19,303 is the amount of your tuition
Osgoode uses to pay for salaries and operational costs.
But this is where the exercise of calculating the breakdown for the remaining portion of tuition is significantly less precise. Since Osgoode does not track JD
tuition separately, it is impossible to say precisely how
much goes into professor’s salaries, as an example.
While teaching JD students forms an important part
of professors’ salaries, other aspects such as graduate supervision, scholarly contributions, and institutional service also account for their earnings, which
it would be unfair to characterize as wholly paid for
by JD students. The following figures were obtained
by attributing the same percentage towards tuition
paid, as the percentage of the expense line versus
total expense. As a result, the following attributions
65
Osgoode
58†
Ottawa
40‡
Western
39
Queen’s
36
Windsor
30
Lakehead
7
* Includes emeritus, retired, and professors on
leave unless explicitly demarcated on school’s
website.
† Actual Osgoode figure.
‡ English program only.
salary by the number of faculty shows that the average Osgoode professor costs $209,424 of salary and
benefits.
Operating Costs – $4,538 – 19% of Tuition
Osgoode currently does not pay directly for its operating costs; as a result, actual costs are likely higher
than the reported $7.5 million that Osgoode budgeted
The Flex Fund
Maybe you have heard of the Flex Fund, which is calculated by taking revenue and subtracting expenses,
which is essentially the Osgoode spin on what a business might call gross profits. In 2014/15, revenue
exceeded expenses by $2.3 million, though the actual
Flex Fund is larger because of a positive carry-forward
from previous years. That said, it was not included in
this breakdown as money for the Flex Fund primarily comes from profit from OPD rather than tuition,
according to the Office of the Executive Officer.
The Flex Fund is a discretionary fund from which
the Dean can use to fund various initiatives, both from
students and faculty. An important caveat though is
that this money cannot be used for full-time salaries. In other words, when money is coming from the
“Dean’s Office,” it is likely coming out of this fund.
Budget Surpluses and Tuition is Going Up?
Osgoode is in fairly good financial shape; it has run
budget surpluses for the last three years and has paid
down a structural deficit. So this may lead many students to ask why the plan is to increase tuition by
5%, the maximum allowed amount, for the foreseeable future. The administration has explained uncertainty from other revenue sources, potential added
costs as a result of the change in budgeting models,
and contractual salary raises necessitate these tuition
increases. In addition, Osgoode values being a leader
in legal education, and the drive to enhance the
Osgoode experience pushes the law school towards
growth and expansion, rather than shrinkage.
The Broader Discussion on Tuition
Much has already been said about high tuition and
the “access to justice” issue. We are already seeing
some of the effects of high tuition on the composition of the class at Osgoode; less than 20% of applicants applying to Osgoode in 2014/15 cited coming
from low-income situations, and this statistic is
moving in a downward trend according to a report
from the Osgoode Admissions Committee. Notably,
Osgoode has looked to remedy this by exploring a
“flexible JD” program, an extended degree of more
than three years, with a schedule more conducive to
working while pursuing law school. There is also the
much acclaimed announcement of the income-contingent loan program, where five students would go to
Osg