An Economic Argument
I believe education is a right. In a country as great as Canada, there's no way to justify denying young Canadians a chance to excell through education. Just like health care, sound foreign policy and road maintenance the government should allow for young Canadians to get a shot at quality, accesible education. This is currently not the state of affairs. Able students are turning away because the price tag is just too high. A recent StatsCan survey entitled 'Youth in Transition' asked graduating High School students who chose not to further their education why this was: more than 70% said it was financial barriers. That's what we call an overwhelming majority. When you put that stat beside the stat that shows that over 70% of new Canadian jobs require some form of post-secondary education, a distressing trend emerges. The appeal for quality, accesible education does not rest solely on moral ground, it's an economic issue as well.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently released it annual 'competitiveness' rankings. Canada slipped again this year, all the way to 16th place. Among the 15 countries ahead of us, if there was a common trend among an admitedly diverse group, it's the amount of governmental investment in education. It seems the remedy for Canada's underperformance in global competitiveness is not tax cuts, as the CanNeo-Cons would have us believe. In a refreshing bit of economic analysis it seems investment in education is the ticket for a more competitive economy. Who knew, investment in education makes economic sense.
Isaac Cockburn
VP Student Issues
posted by CUSA @ 5:41 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
If tuition is such a barrier, why does Quebec have the lowest tuition in the country AND the lowest PSE enrollment in the country?
First off, that low tuition doesn't apply to all students, just those who are from Quebec...and second of all, how many students do you know have to either work part-time/full-time during the year and more hours than one would think humanly possible just to pay for living expenses and their tuition in the fall. Sure most of us get that really nice entrance scholarship but the number that get to keep it is very low. An A- is very difficult for alot of students to achieve because they are making a transition, not only to a higher level of education but often to a completely different lifestyle. To say that the average student right now in Canada graduates from university with enough debt to equal the buyout price of a small car and have to pay interest on top of that which often rivals the orignal amount of their loan is ridiculous. Especially when, like Isaac pointed out, that most jobs require some sort of post-secondary education. It's not just universities either...colleges can have the same situation and it shows no signs of slowing down.
Nae-bear: Fair enough. So, since Nova Scotia has both the highest tuition in the country, lower minimum wage, and generally higher unemployment, that must mean that it has even lower PSE rates than quebec, right?"
I think it's worth remembering why Quebec has lower tuition - a militant student movement. So we can't look at this strictly as the result of policy.
Tuition obviously isn't the only barrier to higher PSE enrollment. Many other factors, including the nature of the labour market in Quebec, have to be taken into consideration. The point is, making education affordable is removing one key barrier for higher education.
an-mp: I'd also ask, does a cegep count as PSE or is it strictly universities that count in Quebec?
One thing to keep in mind when looking at historical statistics on education: the percentage and number of students getting a post-secondary education in Canada has doubled in the past generation. Universities have experienced growing pains during this dramatic expansion. But this is a huge success story: especially with our Colleges where Canada is the world-leader.
This problem is that Canada underfunds PSE: the average rich country puts 3.6% of its GDP into education; Canada invests 3.1%. And the percentage of this that is public money is dropping sharply. This is bad when some grad students have trouble getting loans. This is bad when SSHRC is stingy and starved.
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