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.
It’s funny that our college-like businesses are crutching on foreign students to stay afloat; and if they dry up a bit, people are pissed that they have to find a new way to keep education running as a for-profit business without the understanding that running as such is wrong.
Tax the rich. Run the schools. Go find a Viking nation and ask them how they managed since forever.
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.
It used to be. Now it’s bringing in people from India who have taken a loan or borrowed from family in order to get into a diploma mill, whilst actually working for an abusive boss in the “service industry”
That ended last year buddy. Foreign students are now capped at 8%. You know who came up with that scheme? The McGuinty Liberals.
It would have been trivially easy to kill diploma mills off without affecting public universities and colleges. There’s only around 200 of those across the whole country and they’re heavily regulated/monitored/audited, and they could have just given them an exception on the quotas to keep them fully functional.
I’d mostly agree, although there are a number of institutions that were previously providing more balanced services and “saw green” to focus more on international revenue and might need to scale back as well.
Best thing is just to remove the changes that allowed international students to work off campus (and increase policing of those hiring illegally). That particular change really seems to have been a tipping point for the system
Yeah. There’s no way you’re going to get older, wealthier Canadian taxpayers to make up the shortfall by cutting back on international students.
We’re having a hard enough time as it is getting elementary school teachers paid. Universities cost FAR MORE per student than elementary schools. Tuition costs have skyrocketed way faster than inflation.
Making taxpayers pay all tuition costs is the surest way to get universities defunded completely.
Tuition costs have been capped for the last 8 years in Ontario. Is everyone just pulling numbers out of their asses?
I don’t think you’re talking about the same thing. There’s tuition cost in the sense of what students pay to get an education, and there’s what it costs the university to provide that education. You can cap the former. You can’t cap the latter.
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.
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?
In this thread, I’m amazed coin operated lectures have not been suggested.
Lol. I had some profs who would never have gotten their first loonie.
Yea, this is stupid. One of my clients is a public college, and they’re already hurting. They already cut a bunch of programs to save the rest. A new round of international student cuts is going to gut so many more that they just worked so hard to save.
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.
It’s annoying the only real choices are business daddy, or business daddy that’s deiniftely a bigoted racist.
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.
Yeah that was one of the reasons I voted for him. Truly upsetting.
Business daddy is telling Canada we are not productive enough, but refuses to fix that with R&D spending. A bunch of oxy addicts with back hoes is not a stable future economy, Carney knows that.
O boo hoo, Universities don’t need unlimited growth. So what if they make less this year than they did last year. They are not hurting, only their unrestricted growth is threatened.
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.
They’re hurting because they got addicted to international student funding and grew to ridiculous size, then that funding dried up and they don’t want to shrink back down to normal size.
It’s like a person being fed all-you-can-eat fried chicken and milkshakes, gaining 300 lbs, then being put on a healthy diet and complaining they’re hungry all the time.
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.
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.
The didn’t get “addicted”, they had their funding model fucked with by various levels of government. They don’t choose their fucking revenue models! The state clawed back a bunch of funding and replaced it with international students, and now they’re taking that away. So the result is massive hardship.
They got fucked by a model forced on them by McGuinty, then yanked out from them by Ford. In 4 years, there will not be room to train students as programs retract.
Ontario’s university system has been the only driver of the economy since the 60s producing thousands of engineers and scientists. But does a high school diploma Premiere understand that? Or does he have a personal problem with post secondary education he flunked out of in 1984?
You don’t even know the difference between universities and colleges.
Perhaps if you had of attended either institution, you wouldn’t make comments like that one.
projection
If my comment is a projection, yours is a prolapse.
It’s a good thing that university funding is provincial. Maybe they should stop cutting the funding and giving it to rich people, I’m looking at you Doug Ford.
I know people who were qualified for graduate school, but did not get in. Mainly because foreign students pay better. There would actually be a more diverse/enjoyable university experience if more Canadians (say at least half of students) were admitted.
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.
Most rigorous studies show that immigration is to the net financial benefit of a nation but the increase of foreign students in Canada is really just a story of capitalist greed. The quality of education is far too low for the cost of tuition and I’d argue its an extremist capitalist position to expect infinite growth from a nations productivity and to see decreasing fertility as an existential threat.
Now it’s complicated in Canada because social services are funded by the current tax payer base and Boomers are about to decimate the healthcare system as they get older and sicker. But bringing folks over on false pretenses is not the solution to that.
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.
U of T is Toronto’s biggest land owner.
Entirely anecdotal, but a University I was attending almost went bankrupt during the pandemic because no one was paying for parking. Like, just losing that income almost destroyed it. I’m not sure Carney, who has never had to worry about rent, can really understand that.
Right. The guy has a PhD in economics, but doesn’t understand how things get paid for. smh.
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There are lots and lots of Universities all over the world pushing out hard working, intelligent people for which there are not even close to enough jobs. Make it make sense.
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.
It’s the perfect crime! The feds create a problem with a solution that’s under provincial jurisdiction…
I don’t know about other provinces, but here in Ontario, the provincial government created the problem. Tuition has been frozen to 2019 levels and they reduced direct funding to universities and colleges. The “solution” was to massively ramp up international student enrollment, which came with a lot of other issues.
I think that’s pretty universal, and it’s been the case for decades.
No, it has not been the case for decades.
It was certainly the case when I was in school, and that was decades ago.
The problem was created by Provinces cutting funds to universities and education in general… Universities made up the shortfall by using International Students which was a Federally enabled escape valve.
This has been the game of mostly conservative Provincial Premiers; cut everything and blame it on the Feds.
I do feel for some of the legit universities but from what I see, the vast majority of the money milked from International Students did not go to improve the level of education (barely has moved in the last few years) and mostly went to “Mall universities” which are borderline a scam, all stamped and approved by the Provincial gov.
A pleasant reversal from the usual situation. Like, all the regulations that sandbag against housing are municipal, which can only be overridden by the provinces.
Sweet talking conman right there.
Are we now acting like universities are poor and aren’t gouging the fuck out of everyone?
WTF are you even talking about?
University is only for the middle class and wealthy, the poor don’t get to play
Guy. You’ve been all over the place with your uninformed criticisms. I don’t think you really even understand what it is that has you so upset at universities, but there is something playing out before us.
I’ve worked in hospitals and have seen first hand how much money goes to the top while the rest of us struggled and some of us literally died. If you have no issue with how much money is being spent at the top, that speaks to you and your views.
Im for free education
Great. You’ve worked for hospitals. But surely you can see, if you take a step back, how it kind of proves my point if that is what is informing your opinion about fucking universities.
You get that universities don’t get to decide whether or not education is free, right? You’re pissed off at the wrong people, YET AGAIN.
Simping for the rich, that’s what you’re doing. Traitor
Notice how you are unable to actually address anything I say. You’re angry for unrelated reasons and you’re looking for places to put it, but you’re not smart enough to find appropriate places. Talk to someone.
Right? Its more like correcting an income that was taken advantage of in the first place.
Wtf are you talking about. Tuitions have been frozen in Ontario for 8 years. Laurentian went broke.
Unaffordable 8 years ago doesn’t mean it’s affordable now. It’s always been a gouge and continues to be so. Higher education is for the upper middle class and wealthy, they use it to look down on others and maintain the status quo, they don’t want poor people there unless a rich person pays
Honestly, I don’t think you even know what the word “gouge” means. HINT: IT DOESN’T MEAN “EXPENSIVE”
How much do they charge in your province? Tuition is very affordable here in Quebec
Ontario is just over $6K for most programs, $9K for engineering and B.Comm coops.
US, many times that.
That tracks, its a bit less here being ~5k for most programs
Unless its more than free that’s not affordable to most
It actually can be for many due to bursaries and very very easy to pay off loans. Few locals graduate with debt.
Few locals graduate with debt.
[citation required]
The amounts are more than I expected but it doesn’t breakdown by if the student is local, national, or international which matters. Figures however are not very high in terms of overall debt burden compared to the US and they are lower than the national figures
I don’t know anyone who graduated without debt and I know several people struggling to deal with their student loans, which don’t even go away with bankruptcy.
Are you here in Québec?
The absolute cost of tuition doesn’t speak to whether the school is “gouging,” which would imply excessive profit-taking with funds moving to private investors – WHO DON’T EVEN EXIST IN THIS SCENARIO.
No school’s tuition covers the actual cost for Canadian citizens. Every tuition is highly subsidized. If anything, we’re gouging the schools, because they are not allowed to raise tuitions but their costs are going up while their revenue is dropping.
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”
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.
What institutions are you talking about, specifically. Name a couple.
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.
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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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Yeah that won’t happen. Senior admin bloat is like crack cocaine for universities and colleges.
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.
Okay, right after you explain why Real Estate agents are millionaires.
Is this a whataboutism?
Because this seems like a whataboutism.
I’m with you on that, the job should not exist anymore
Health care money is very notoriously being withheld from hospitals, and gets redirected to private clinics at several times the cost to taxpayers. This is not the situation in education. We don’t have a massive pay-to-play tier of Universities. They’re all non-profit.
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
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.
