You're going to make up the funding shortfall, right?
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That’s completely false and fabricated. Firstly, foreign students are capped at 8%. Secondly, they pay more tuition, but the institution does not get any government co-funding. Thirdly, in science, students are paid minimum stipends around $30K a year, so space on limited by research funding support, at which Canada is the lowest per capita of the G8. There is a level of demonstrated excellence to get into grad programs, not just a place to spend 5 more years to get a piece of paper.
Firstly, foreign students are capped at 8%
Is that a new cap? Just for graduate schools? It’s been a while since my annecdote or Uni experience.
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Somehow I doubt their budgets shortfall and spending choices are only because government wont give these private for profit institutions enough free money.
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.
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Yup, Neo-liberal or full blown Nuremberg. Easy choice but we’re still getting fucked. We need ranked choice voting and proportional representation but how do you get our parliament to vote through a resolution that endangers a lot of their safe seats.
We were so close with Trudeau. He was elected entirely on the back of that promise and everyone knew it. All we had to do was hold his feet to the fire when he tried to weasel out of it after getting the majority that left him no reasonable excuse for not following through. But we all know what happened. He later even said his biggest regret was not following through on electoral reform. Well, yeah. I’m not sure I believe him, but if he’s telling the truth I hope it fucking haunts him. It should. I’ll certainly never forgive him.
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We were so close with Trudeau. He was elected entirely on the back of that promise and everyone knew it. All we had to do was hold his feet to the fire when he tried to weasel out of it after getting the majority that left him no reasonable excuse for not following through. But we all know what happened. He later even said his biggest regret was not following through on electoral reform. Well, yeah. I’m not sure I believe him, but if he’s telling the truth I hope it fucking haunts him. It should. I’ll certainly never forgive him.
Yeah that was one of the reasons I voted for him. Truly upsetting.
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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.
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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.
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I don’t want secretaries, alumni officers, event planners, making $130k, and being able to comfortably retire at 55 on a defined benefit plan, no.
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Plenty of MBAs in this country that manage budgets larger than that, make less than half that with no pension.
Sounds like you’re the only one that reads that paper between the two of us
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Got that right. The head of our local college was making $400,000 a year before he retired. This is a small town college not a university, and that kind of income is ridiculously high for a college president in a town of 60,000. Thats double what our premier makes.
On the other hand, I did a little digging and compared to other English speaking nation universities, Canada is actually bottom of the list for paying our university presidents: https://higheredstrategy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Figure-6.png
I’m sure private universities in places like the US are included in those figures
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Okay, right after you explain why Real Estate agents are millionaires.
I’m with you on that, the job should not exist anymore
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Are we now acting like universities are poor and aren’t gouging the fuck out of everyone?
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.
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Perhaps if you had of attended either institution, you wouldn’t make comments like that one.
projection
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The federal and provincial governments have been underfunding universities for decades. Recently, universities were able to start recruiting foreign students to make up for the shortfall, but it looks like that money tap will be turned down. It doesn’t look like there’s a plan to make up for it.
At the same time, the feds want to
recruit more than 1,000 top international researchers to Canada, with the budget injecting up to $1.7-billion into a suite of recruitment measures.
That’ll be tough if universities see their income crater.
Once they come for the universities, you know whats up. Happened in nazi germany, where they burned intellectual property including but not limited to the studies of the university of berlin about gender theory.
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projection
If my comment is a projection, yours is a prolapse.
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Isn’t growing universities a good thing? It seems to me that giving everyone access to a university education would be highly beneficial to the people.
Universities have grown way beyond what they need to for the domestic student population. This is growth squarely aimed at international students who pay 5-10x what domestic students pay in tuition. Cut off the tap of international students and you end up with huge unused capacity and budget shortfalls.
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I watched my local college lose all its credibility as a result of running borderline scams for foreign students. My old university otoh has been rather smart about not becoming too dependent on foriegn student tuition. I love immigration, and especially think exporting our education is a good thing, but the way these programs have been run in recent years is a cancer on these institutions and pure short term thinking. I’d rather see reform, but this is almost as good.
I’d rather see reform, but this is almost as good.
Actual reform would be the way to go.
UofT appears to have done a good job of keeping their books balanced, despite the glut of foreign students, but many others have not.
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Tuition costs have been capped for the last 8 years in Ontario. Is everyone just pulling numbers out of their asses?
Tuition fees have been capped, not tuition costs. Tuition costs go up when universities build more buildings, hire more staff, pay for more electricity and heating. If they’re doing all that stuff to cater to extremely lucrative international students who then get cut off, the school ends up with budget shortfalls.
This is all excess capacity (and luxury) that domestic students don’t need and didn’t ask for. It’s all designed to compete for international students on the global market.
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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.
I have worked in hospitals and I would imagine it’s a similar situation. The top people make all the money and the nursing and housekeeping staff keep getting shafted and told “there’s no money for you”
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WTF are you even talking about?
University is only for the middle class and wealthy, the poor don’t get to play
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Universities have grown way beyond what they need to for the domestic student population. This is growth squarely aimed at international students who pay 5-10x what domestic students pay in tuition. Cut off the tap of international students and you end up with huge unused capacity and budget shortfalls.
Okay but larger enrollments help everyone. Attracting legitimate international students to our Universities tends to result in better educations for our citizens and better research for our society. There’s no necessary downside.
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I’d rather see reform, but this is almost as good.
Actual reform would be the way to go.
UofT appears to have done a good job of keeping their books balanced, despite the glut of foreign students, but many others have not.
U of T is Toronto’s biggest land owner.
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There is too much bloat. I’ve seen first hand essentially glorified admins being paid $130k + full pension. They need to trim the fat at these places and restructure operations to get rid of all the waste.
Yeah that won’t happen. Senior admin bloat is like crack cocaine for universities and colleges.
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Okay, right after you explain why Real Estate agents are millionaires.
Is this a whataboutism?
Because this seems like a whataboutism.
