On Thursday, members of the University of Toronto’s highest governing body voted overwhelmingly in favour of adopting a long-term policy framework that is closely modeled on research-intensive universities in the United States.

The policy document, entitled ‘”Towards 2030,” was first tabled by U of T President David Naylor. It calls for a boost to commercialized research and a significant reduction of the undergraduate population. Critics of the plan argue that the document readily accepts permanent tuition deregulation for one of Canada’s leading public institutions.

Among the 50 voting members of the Council, only one governor opposed Thursday’s motion. Jeff Peters, a representative of the Association of Part-Time Undergraduate Students, feared that the plan would especially hurt part-time degree students, and lamented the plan’s strong business focus.

“[The administration] want to deregulate tuition and they want to add more continuing education spaces,” Peters said. “They also talk a lot about corporate funding [but] they don’t mention anything about equity.”

Unlike part-time study, Peter aruges that, continuing-education programs do not issue official degrees and are able to achieve a full cost recovery from a financial point-of-view.

While the Governing Council refrained from voting on a specific action plan on Thursday, the motion formally recognized the future priorities of the university, several of which are inspired by prominent American universities. One such goal is to reduce the university’s undergraduate population from 83 per cent of total enrolment to 65 per cent by 2030. Spaces for graduate students would increase by similar margins. This plan mimics enrolment strategies at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where undergraduate spaces make up less than 60 per cent of total student enrolment.

Thursday’s motion also called for further “commercialization of university discoveries” as well as an increase in “per-student revenues” which according to the report currently make up less than one-tenth of financial resources at private, research-intensive, American institutions, according to the report.

Ryan Matthew Campbell, a governor representing full-time students in professional degrees such as law and medicine, was among the majority of legislators who voted in favour of Thursday’s motion.

“I do think the framework document from ‘Towards 2030’ is good for both the University of Toronto [and its students]”, Campbell said. He noted that his constituents were largely ambivalent when asked about the plan. “The framework did not take a position on tuition, and it explicitly stated that the top priority for the University of Toronto is advocacy with the Province of Ontario to increase public funding for education.”

Some critics have argued that public funding can do more harm than good if resources are not spent accordingly. Under the new framework, the U of T will continue to advocate for government “investments in research, as well as growth in federally derived student aid and scholarships.” Students fear that public research funding is increasingly being used for commercial interests. Furthermore, it has been argued that simply issuing bursaries and scholarships will not help the university provide affordable education-part of its public mandate.

“On the other hand, international students [who are ineligible for many forms of financial aid] are concerned that their fees will skyrocket,” said Binish Ahmed, former vice-president university affairs for the U of T Students’ Union. Ahmed fears that the university will be looking to capitalize on the earning potential of international tuition fees.

While Thursday’s motion did not contain specific reference to tuition deregulation it did state that the university will continue to ensure that “accessibility is maintained as and when tuitions increase.” Critics of the proposal have argued that the university would rather accommodate tuition fee hikes than lobby the government to keep costs down.

Students’ Society President Kay Turner indentified a similar trend towards privatization at McGill, where greater attention has been paid to graduate student admissions, which bring lucrative research funding and greater prestige for the university.

“It has [also] been made explicitly clear by the principal and other university administrators that a shift should be made towards the deregulation of tuition and a shift [in] focus towards increased private funding,” Turner said.

McGill Principal Heather Munroe-Blum previously served as both a governor on the U of T’s Governing Council and as a vice-president of research and international relations. In addition, McGill and the U of T are the only Canadian members of the Association of American Universities, an invitation-only group of 62 leading North American research universities whose reports are frequently cited in the 2030 framework.

“In a very narrow sense, these changes may be good for [McGill] as an institution, in that it will have more money, more prestige, and be more of an elite university. For students and society as a whole, it will be a step backwards. Less people would be able to attend the university,” Turner said.

Indeed, for the lone member who opposed the measure at Thursday’s vote, this was a rash choice in a Governing Council where only four seats out of 50 represent undergraduate students.

“[It makes] the university even more inaccessible,” Peters said. “It is not the vision I have for U of T moving forward.”