Canada

I don’t understand why you would blame universities (calling them college-like businesses), when foreign students were the only option for increased revenue (to even just match inflation) that has been allowed in the last decade. Before that, only tuition increases were allowed, since government funding has been consistently decreasing.

I completely agree that funding for education should be through taxes, but (especially in Ontario), this is the funding that dried up a very long time ago.

Universities are non-profit organizations in Canada (we are not the U.S.) and have been advocating for increasing government funding first and foremost for a long time. Sure, universities have pivoted to fund by whatever the best alternative has been, but otherwise they wouldn’t survive.

The reliance on foreign students was never the preferred option for anyone but the government, and that was only so they could stop funding education. Now that alternative (really a last resort) is being limited by the government as well, so yeah, being pissed about it is reasonable.

Of course a much better option would be, for example, for the provincial government to provide higher government grants for every domestic student and to also provide that grant for more domestic students (most don’t realize this, but there is something called “corridor”, and universities don’t get government funding for domestic students above that government-induced number). These are provincial decisions, btw.

So yes, universities would love to take on more domestic students, and would love for the government to pay for them (and pay more for each), but that’s instead been decreasing for decades. So what’s this magic “new way” that universities are supposed to be trying instead?

Exporting education IS taxing the rich. The rich just happen to be from a different country. The majority of those students are paying vast sums of money to these schools to get their education, then going back home after. That money was subsidizing education for Canadian citizens.

Centrists and conservatives don’t have the capacity to understand “return on investment” or “in-direct benefits”. Carney is saving money by not paying the bills, so to speak, and that only works until the first of the month rolls around.

I’m so sick of seeing the research and case studies pile up which show all the easy, low-risk solutions to most of our problems just for those morons to bust in and keep doing the same worthless bullshit.

Our politicians are incredibly short sighted. It's amazing that the same budget both defunds universities and says we want to attract the "best and the brightest" to those same universities.

Wtf are you talking about. Tuitions have been frozen in Ontario for 8 years. Laurentian went broke.

They're not, really. Their expenses have gone up to match. The days of just teaching with just blackboards are over.

If all expenses are necessary is another question, though. Someone mentioned administration bloat.

Universities are non-profit organizations in Canada. I agree that they don’t need unlimited growth, but the consequence of not funding them is a decrease in the quality of education and the country’s ability to be at the forefront of research.

They are absolutely hurting right now, btw. One consequence of this is some (small) amount of improved efficiency, but the reality if this continues is a degradation of post-secondary education.

For example, more and more high school students will struggle to get into good programs, and then eventually, we just won’t have good programs.

The ignorance here is incredible, and reeks of failed students, or people who drank through a 3 year BA in art history. The Canadian Foundation Institute was established 20 years ago to partner with provinces to build badly needed infrastructure for research.

Those "facilities" you are whining about are for research on disease or new technology that is the driving force of the economy. These insitutions are a great net stimulus of billions for new technology and business. New fried chicken franchises are not the future economy.

The one I have as a client has only built a new trades building and a new nursing building in the last 10 years, both for super in-demand programs. As far as I can tell they're not overly top heavy in any way.

Maybe certain institutions were being stupid, but it's definitely not all of them.

Oh, there are enough jobs, it’s just that most companies would rather pay one overworked person to pull 60hr weeks to pump out mediocre work before burning out and being replaced than pay two happy and productive people to work 40hr weeks or, heaven forbid, three people to work 30-32hr weeks with a huge bump in moral and producitivity.

We got the money, we got the people, and we got the evidence that backs it all up.

Yeah that won’t happen. Senior admin bloat is like crack cocaine for universities and colleges.

1. No public institutions in Canada pay the pensions of people employed there. The pension funds are user contributed and the mandatory contributions allow no RESP savings.

2. Many departments between education and research have budgets exceeding $100M/yr...you want to put that in the hands of anyone making under $250K? Good luck.

Back to the National Post comment section with you.

Both for this and for healthcare.

The nurses are struggling to get a fair deal while somehow the billions a year put into healthcare goes where exactly?

Not to the front line staff, I'll tell you that much.

And I get it, materials and equipment isn't cheap but between nurses salaries and material costs, and the occasional multi-million dollar piece of equipment.... I just don't see where it's all being spent. Between the middle and upper management, there needs to be an overhaul.

Education on every level isn't dissimilar.

Hell, most government services need a review, at the very least.

Almost all Canadian Universities (and the ones we are really talking about here) are all non-profit. They reinvest any profits back into the institution to improve their capacity for research. This is why Canada has some of the world's leading research universities. They are not profiting to make individual people richer, they are profiting to make society and our future richer.

This is starting to change though. There are unfortunately a growing number of for-profit "universities" in the country but most of them are transparently low quality diploma-mills (which is a whole different problem that needs dealing with) and aside from misleading naive domestic and mostly international students and separating them from their money, they remain of very marginal educational or research significance. That may not continue though unless we do something to support our large majority of non-profit universities.