Lee Way

[A draft of this piece was originally posted on You Must Start Somewhere.]

Québec students are currently in the midst of the longest student strike in North American history, in resistance to the proposed raising of university tuition from about $3,000 per year to about $4,600 per year, over a period of five years.  Even if Québec tuition remains the lowest in North America, the tuition hikes will exclude thousands of low-income people per year from achieving higher education.  A disproportionate number of those excluded will be single mothers and women of colour.

We all know that poverty and education are feminist issues.  Poverty is disproportionately experienced by women and people of colour, and post-secondary education is one of the most critical tools for young people from poor backgrounds to break the cycle of poverty.  As a first-generation university graduate, I grew up watching my single mother – who is smart as fuck – struggle to take night classes for years while working multiple jobs and raising two kids.  Despite relatively “low” tuition and straight-A’s, she never got her degree.  Despite being an avid reader of academic texts and a prolific writer, she cannot return to school due to a few hundred dollars of unpaid tuition from over a decade ago – a luxury that the welfare check simply cannot cover.