Nearly every European Union country has committed to reducing their expenditures on universities, reports Times Higher Education. Spain is cutting €485 million from education overall, and assistance to local authorities — key supporters of universities — will be reduced by just over €1 billion. Ireland’s budget in December included a 2% reduction in core funding for PSE to secure savings of €23.6 million. In Italy, high-profiled budget cuts offer little hope for PSE investment in the country in 2012. With a 20% fall in PSE funding predicted by 2013 even before December’s “Save Italy” budget cuts of €30 billion, most expect more pain to follow. Since the European Universities Association’s most recent report in June, only Norway, Finland, and Germany have maintained their commitments to increase funding for PSE. France remains committed to plans to invest up to €30 billion to improve universities and research through its national loan system, but borrowing billions could be tricky in light of its own lingering debt problems. Times Higher Education (Academicagroup)

Hundreds of students across the province came together on February 1^st for the Canadian Federation of Students’ Day of Action to protest Nova Scotia’s continuing erosion of funding for higher education.  The average Nova Scotian graduate leaves university with $30,000 in accumulated debt, a number that will continue to rise with recently-announced cuts.  Tuition for some programs in the province will go up by as much as 3% next year.

Laura Penny, professor and author of multiple books, including “More Money Than Brains: Why School Sucks, College is Crap, and Idiots Think They’re Right,” spoke to the crowd of hundreds.  See Penny speak at the 4^th Annual CCPA-NS Fundraiser in October 2011, here.

In April 2011, CCPA-NS released a study entitled, “Fairness, Funding and our Collective Future: A Way Forward for Post-secondary Education in Nova Scotia.”  The authors call on the government to stop underestimating both the individual cost of pursuing a post-secondary education as well as the benefits to society as a whole.  Read their recommendations, here.

Irrespective of their income status, parents who lack a higher education are not likely to see their children pursue post-secondary studies, observes a University of Saskatchewan report that examined the accessibility of a university education in Canada and Saskatchewan. Much of the conversation about PSE accessibility has focused on tuition rates and other costs, but the report notes that non-financial barriers are key to understanding why some youth choose not to pursue PSE. Despite continuing increases in tuition and other education-related expenses, the overall cost incurred by the average student remains relatively unchanged as a result of increased tax credits, scholarships, bursaries, and other government initiatives, states the report. The study notes that while the financial-aid system is an important aspect of accessibility, there must be a focus on the 10- to 15-year-olds who demonstrate an academic aptitude and who do not come from a culture of PSE. uSask News Release | Accessibility and Affordability Report 2011 (Academicagroup)

For many grade 12 students, spring is university application season. In Western Canada, youth living in families with an annual income over $100,000 are still more than twice as likely to attend university than youth with family income under $25,000.

This is hardly surprising, given average tuition fees run over $4,800 a year these days, but it’s fundamentally inequitable. It undermines social cohesion and there are real economic costs to all of us when we don’t fully utilize the skills and capabilities of all our citizens.

Reducing upfront costs for students would improve access to higher education and ensure that B.C. can reap the benefits of a well-educated work-force. And it’s more affordable than you think.

Conventional wisdom has it that higher education in B.C. is heavily subsidized because tuition fees don’t cover the full cost of education. But this common misconception ignores a second way in which students pay for their education: through higher taxes after graduation.

When these tax payments are added up over the course of graduates’ careers, it turns out that university students fully repay the cost of their degrees and then some.

Despite the pervasive stereotype of arts majors serving lattes at Starbucks, the reality is that higher education remains a great investment in today’s economy. University graduates experience shorter periods of unemployment, are more likely to work full-time and earn higher salaries than their peers with high school diplomas.

Census data shows that B.C. women in their 30s working full-time earned $56,000 if they had a bachelor’s degree, $40,000 with a college degree and only $33,000 with a high school diploma. For men, the corresponding figures are $74,000 for a bachelor’s degree, $58,000 for a college diploma and $50,000 for high school.

With higher earnings come higher income taxes and less need for government cash transfers like welfare and employment insurance. A new study I’ve authored for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives calculates the value of the extra income taxes (net of transfers) paid by female university graduates over their careers at $98,400, and $155,400 for men. This at least than twice the actual cost to the province of a four-year under-graduate degree in one of B.C.’s public universities, $50,630, and tuition fees already cover 40 per cent of that… Read More

According to a new report on the socioeconomic benefits generated by Fanshawe College, students at the institution will enjoy a 6.1% rate of return on their investments of time and money. For every dollar a student invests in Fanshawe, he or she will receive a cumulative $1.38 in higher future earnings over the next 3 decades or so. The report observes that for every credit completed, Fanshawe students will, on average, make $44 more per year every year they are in the workforce. Alternatively, for every full-time year they attend, students will make an additional $1,349 annually. In the aggregate (all existing students), the higher earnings amount to approximately $31.2 million annually for each year they remain in the workforce. Fanshawe News | Executive Summary (Academicagroup)

A new U.S. Census Bureau Study shows how education levels have more of an effect on earnings over a 40 year span in the workforce than any other demographic factor, giving evidence that a worker with a professional degree is expected to make more than a worker with an education level of 8^th grade or lower.

The study released today showed that education was more effective than other demographic factors such as gender, race, and Hispanic origin.

The study shows that non-Hispanic white males, Asian males, and Asian females benefit more from higher levels of education over a 40 year career in a professional degree than those in other groups.

According to the release by the Census Bureau, white males with a professional degree make more than double, about $2.4 million more than that of Hispanic females with the same level of education.

Although many factors influence work life earnings such as race and Hispanic origin, gender, citizenship, English-speaking ability and geographic location, the most influential impact is education.

While the annual earnings impact of gender was $13,000, the impact of a professional degree and an 8^th grade education was about $72,000 per year or about 5 times more than gender. The report was released by the Education and Synthetic Work-Life Earnings… Read More

In a new report, the Toronto-based Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity highlights the importance of education for Ontarians and Ontario’s overall economic performance, especially during the economic downturn. While Ontario leads the US in bachelor and professional degree attainment, the rate of master’s degrees per capita in the US is nearly double that of Ontario. In order to improve the competitiveness of Ontario’s workforce, the report urges the provincial government to continue to invest in PSE, improve access for low-income students, and encourage students to increase their qualifications. Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity News Release | Read the report (Academicagroup)

Post-secondary school payoff is documented but aboriginals, low-income and first generations still avoid it

As the Canadian economy sheds jobs, finding the answer to why certain segments of the population - aboriginals, first-generation and lowincome students - are so resistant to the lure of college or university has gained new urgency.

Governments have pumped money into grants and student aid. Given clear evidence of a higher education wage premium, it was expected that people from all socio-economic backgrounds would flood into institutions.

It hasn’t happened. And if we still want people to get a post-secondary education, we have to ask where we go from here if price is not an issue and the benefits of higher education are underrated.

The issue was centre stage this week at a conference on financial literacy organized by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.

Harvey Weingarten, the council’s president, said in an interview the motivation for the event was simple: “A post-secondary credential is the ticket to a better personal and professional life.”

A well-educated population is critical to Canada’s future as a knowledgebased economy, where, Weingarten said, diploma-and degree-holders are better placed to survive economic uncertainty than those without.

“The people who lose jobs are the people without post-secondary credentials,” he said, hours before Statistics Canada released the latest job numbers, which showed there were 54,000 fewer people working in Canada in October.

But not every segment of society is participating equitably, “so we want to get them there,” Weingarten said… Read More

…There’s a small but growing field of research in Canada that’s exploring the link between financial literacy — the knowledge of all the costs, benefits and available aid associated with going to college or university — and access to higher education.

At the Fear of Finance conference, a two-day gathering organized by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, several hundred people working at colleges and universities, in the public and private sectors and for non-profit organizations came together to share their knowledge and experiences.

Harvey Weingarten, the council’s president, says the motivation for holding the conference is simple: “A post-secondary credential is the ticket to a better personal and professional life.”

A well-educated population is critical to Canada’s future as a knowledge-based economy, where, Weingarten says, people with diplomas and degrees are better placed to survive periods of economic uncertainty than those without.

“The people who lose jobs are the people without post-secondary credentials,” he says.

But not every segment of Canadian society is participating equitably, “so we want to get them there,” Weingarten says.

If researchers and policy-makers can figure out what the barriers are that prevent some people from accessing the financial aid and other supports available to go to college or university, then they can devise a message that will reach the intended audience and encourage them to apply, he hopes… Read More

..The idea that the answer to maintaining high standards at universities lies in getting prospective students to wonder whether they would be better off considering a training or trade program belies a faulty conception of what universities are for. Universities are not for job training or getting into a career. As such, they are not in competition with colleges or vocational institutions.

Universities are about education, about learning for the sake of learning. A student takes courses in English so that she might respond intelligently to works of literature. A student takes courses in history so that she might reflect intelligently on the past. She takes courses in philosophy so that she might confront philosophical perplexity competently. She studies biology so that she might see the living world as a biologist does. And so on through the disciplines.

As a student working toward her bachelor’s degree, she becomes competent to pursue research or study in each of the various disciplines that make up her program. But she also acquires the habits of mind and the tastes of an intellectual: the ability to see different sides to an issue and to evaluate claims dispassionately, the ability to withhold judgment, the desire to figure it out for herself, a taste for controversy. If all goes well, she also acquires a little protection from all the pressures to conform that continually assault her individuality.

There’s nothing in this about preparing for a job or a career. University done rightly is great preparation for life, of course, and, thereby, indirectly it’s preparation for success in work. The goal, though, is simply to study and learn… Read More

Original Air Date: Wednesday, October 05, 2011

In today’s competitive labour market, advocates of post-secondary education say students need at least one degree or diploma just to be considered for a job - regardless of specialty.

But with the cost of a four-year degree now averaging $80,000, critics argue some degrees and diplomas are nearly useless and post-secondary institutions need to be more honest about which courses will really help students get ahead.

What is the real value of a degree or diploma in Alberta now? Has post-secondary education become an industry? If so, whose interests is it serving most - schools or students?
 
Joining us for this discussion is William Van’t Veld from ATB Financial; Mike Mahon, President of University of Lethbridge; and Kyle Moline from the Council of Alberta University Students… Click here to watch video