For a provincial government desperate to manage expectations, the grim accounting now being conducted at Alberta's post-secondary institutions must be a cheering development.
But even as universities and colleges brace for a cash crunch looming in the provincial budget March 7, the Redford government should take care to remember the genuine value of the learning investment. The future payoff is even more compelling at a time when all provinces are anxious to educate and retain their young people to meet the growing shortage of skilled workers.
The premier and her cabinet are locked within a box, no question, and if it's not exactly one of their own making it is still one they have helped fortify in accordance with the prior practice of earlier Tory regimes. Now that the chickens have come home to roost and the province is struggling with sharply reduced resource revenues and a rapidly growing demand for services, something clearly will have to give. Read more...

By Hélène Perrault. Over the last 12 months, Quebec has been subjected to a deep social crisis in which students have taken centre stage to denounce our university system, and more specifically to protest against the projected increase in university tuition fees.
The conflict stems from a perceived or potential threat to access to education for all, which has been a guiding principle of Quebec higher education ever since it was set down 50 years ago in the Parent report. Beyond the debates and number-crunching exercises to define the appropriate dollar cost of tuition fees, there is a consensus that education remains a fundamental societal value for the growth and development of Quebec. Read more...

By Léo Charbonneau. Two institutions have rejoined the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada after absences of differing lengths. The two are St. Paul’s College, located on the campus of the University of Manitoba, and Université du Québec’s Télé-université, or TÉLUQ, a distance-learning institution. St. Paul’s, a Catholic college and home to the Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice, instructs some 1,200 full-time students. TÉLUQ offers more than 400 courses and 75 programs at both the graduate and undergraduate level to 18,000 full- and part-time students. TÉLUQ was a member of AUCC from 1992 until 2005, at which time the Quebec government merged the online university with Université du Québec à Montréal. Read more...

Ideally, Ontario’s universities should produce intelligent and resourceful people to able fulfil their lives with accomplishment. Unfortunately, they turn out too many who are semi-literate, unskilled and unable to meet the demands of the job market (and deeply in debt). This by no means applies to the majority, but in moments of candour professors will acknowledge that their classrooms have too many students with no real interest in being there. It’s not because they aren’t capable. Rather, it’s because the university, with its academic and scholarly orientation — especially in the arts and humanities — is not the best place for them if all they are really concerned about is getting a job. Such circumstances are waste of time, talent and money for the person involved, the university and society at large. Read more...

By Léo Charbonneau. Our feature, “The PhD is in need of revision” (the cover story for the March 2013 print edition of University Affairs and published online Feb. 6), has garnered much attention, quickly becoming the most read article of the past week and receiving loads of comments.
What was not immediately obvious about the story is that the article contains exclusive data not publicly available elsewhere on the completion rates and times to completion of PhD students in Canada. The data are not comprehensive – they’re from only eight of the 15 most research-intensive universities for which there are comparable data, and none of the institutions were identified. Nevertheless, it’s a start. Read more...

By Chris Martin. Postsecondary education has never been more essential to an individual’s success in the labour market, a fact increasingly recognized by students and their families. Recently, Statistics Canada reported that postsecondary enrollment increased 2.7 per cent nationally between 2010 and 2011. In many ways, heavy government investment in student financial assistance has made this increase possible, giving students access to loans and grants to meet high educational costs.
However, for such an important investment, financial assistance is rarely thoroughly evaluated and researched. The question of whether it really is equalizing access to postsecondary education is still the source of much debate, with relatively little analysis informing the debate.
It is for this reason that student groups like the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance and the College Student Alliance conduct regular surveys on financial assistance use. For instance, the latest Ontario Post-Secondary Student Survey polled 7,298 students, about 8 per cent of full-time undergraduates at participating universities. The survey asks students a series of questions on financial assistance use, as well as parental income and family education. Read more...

By Melonie Fullick. A recent article in University World News argued that internationalization has “corrupted” higher education in various ways. In spite of the strong term, I found myself agreeing with much of the article, and it also made me think more about how most of the articles I see about internationalization seem to focus on its economic aspects. If–as has also been argued–there are so many social and cultural benefits to recruiting international students, why then is there such a strong focus in most arguments on the financial benefits for universities and nations? What are the potential effects of this focus?
Internationalization, and particularly the recruitment of international students, doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Universities in Canada, at least, must deal with a context in which government funding, relative to institutional expansion, has been insufficient. The solution for distributing scarce resources that’s been implemented in many jurisdictions has been the creation of (quasi-) markets in which universities compete against each other for financial support, including through student recruitment (which brings tuition revenue). This increases the amount of branding and advertising that universities use, and it encourages the student to think and behave like a consumer making choices about educational “products”. Read more...

By David Ellis. Student finance has changed over the last few years and with each change has come new misunderstandings. David Ellis debunks six of the most common myths.
As if Pancake Day and Valentine’s Day weren't enough, this week is also National Student Money Week. Yes, try to remain calm. But the message is simple and noteworthy: apply now and make sure you know what you’re applying for. To find out more about the week, either visit the Student Loans Company's (SLC) Guide to National Student Money Week, or find details of upcoming student finance surgeries here.
But student finance has changed quite a bit over the last few years, bringing about various misconceptions. Here's a quick guide to six of the most common. Read more...