Move to Canada?
Seriously though, welcome to the United States. Higher education has long been exploding in cost. And the result in the US is crippling student debt.
"Our researchers found that the average cost of college for the 2017–2018 school year was $20,770 for public schools (in-state) and $46,950 for nonprofit private schools, only including tuition, fees, and room and board."
- https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/average-cost-of-college
(study this link. It has a breakdown of all the costs)
So it's gone up to about $11,600 US. A lot of people in the US might be jealous. When it's all said and done a private 4 year college in the US could run a student $200,000.
So I would say, in order to mount ANY kind of successful protest you must be fully informed as to all the variables or factors that go into the price at the low end and at the high end and see whether this price hike has merit and if so, how much.
Because you're not going to force your government to go into extreme debt to pay these schools. No amount of protest is going to accomplish that. What it sounds like is that your government can should a portion of the cost but has to move more of the added cost to the student. While this may feel insanely unfair, the government cannot fully control what they're being forced to pay and it would be unpopular to fully fund it which means significantly raising taxes on everyone.
If they did fully fund and the people actually using the free service didn't have to pay anything for it, then you could use the public's money to get the highest degree possible and come out with the sole benefit of making more money than most people. Except most people would then do the same thing. Colleges would be flooded by people wanting to make more money. And since colleges know that the government is fully paying they can raise tuition even higher. What are they going to do? Not pay up?
The same thing happens with health insurance. The cost skyrockets at the hospital level because they know the insurance companies have to pay. If you don't have insurance they'll ask you whether or not you want certain things done because you may not want to pay for those things. This is especially true of tests and xrays. If a third party is paying then the patient doesn't care because they're paying the copay or deductible anyway. The insurance company just gets a big fat bill.
This is a stretch to put it in the same category but for example, I took my cat to the vet to get spayed. Of course, just like if you take your car to a mechanic, there's a likelihood they will either find something else wrong or find something that MIGHT be wrong and they wont know for sure unless they run a test or take something apart. So the vet asked me if I was okay with them testing what they thought looked like a scratch on the cat's eye. The test was about $25 on top of the $400 I was already spending. I told them to go ahead and do it but I seriously doubted I would hear anything else about it. Sure enough, I picked my cat up and no one said anything about the results of this other test.
Go to the dentist and its the same thing. With insurance, there is a high probability they will xray you every visit. Without insurance they'll ask if you want it because I think its like $100 or some stupid amount like that when they do so many of these. And you know it doesn't cost anything to operate the machine. They're just using the cost to pay for the machine and increase their revenue.
So at the end of the day... on one hand it's capitalism on the part of the companies running up the bill. But that capitalism is intervened by, either insurance, or government subsidy. I hate to say this but when you interfere with the market forces like this, now you have one market force seeing that they have a buyer who will pay anything they want as long as they can justify it. And if there's a problem and the insurance company refuses to pay then that bill is going to go to the patient. So yes, they are over charging which is the source of the problem, but it is aided by the fact that someone other than the patient (and I can't believe I'm saying this) is paying the bill.
There are a few solutions; most of which are extremely uncomfortable.
1. total communism: the government would get to then control the price of the services its paying for.
2. total capitalism: patient pays which forces hospitals to lower pricing to compete with each other
3. strict regulation: the government uses forensic accountants and undercover investigators to detect price fixing, gouging, etc. and fine the institution or hospital equal to the amount of the overcharge + the cost of investigation.
simply paying the bill is BAD because it will encourage the price to go up until its out of control. What you need is to petition the government in a big way to add specific legislation to regulate every industry being subsidized.
The uncomfortable part in #3 is that if these institutions are adapted to this general practice of overcharging then either they will fall apart if they stop and possibly go bankrupt... or they will cut staff and equipment which means poorer service... or they will find other ways to pass on this liability to someone else who may keep passing it like a hot potato until the tax payer is paying for it anyway.
This is why #1 is the best solution but the most uncomfortable. Because if the government owns it then that means the objective is to save as much money as possible rather than needing to make a profit for private owners and equity. Of course the downside to government running it means lower salaries and other issues that may make more qualified doctors, college professors, etc. run to other private institutions. So there is almost no good solution. You need to subsidize and regulate, perhaps to where the government is a 10-30% stake owner and uses that equity position to ensure that the institution is operating efficiently and making profit at the same time. This will probably never happen.
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