Yes, you read correctly: certain privately funded post-secondary institutes in the U.S. are trying to find ways to make university education more affordable, while the public institutions in Canada are playing as much grab-ass as they can with people's tuition dollars. This
informative article from the New York Times describes how Stanford is following the lead of other universities (including Harvard and Yale) in expanding financial aid to families who make less than $100K a year. This means if your family makes 60,000 bucks a year, you can get free tuition at Stanford. I was suprised by this revelation. I know that tuition in the States is horrifingly expensive, and I figured that the price would remain the same (or increase) because of educations' ever increasing value as a commodity. Perhaps the backlash from people paying those exhorbitant amounts is finally reaching the right people. Although I'm sure there are plenty of other factors at play.
What relevance is this to the current situation in Canada? In Canada students working towards undergraduate degrees are getting shafted with increased class sizes, more contact with sessional teachers, and less with full-time faculty -- all the while seeing their tuition increase yearly. It's no secret that the University of Saskatchewan places little importance on undergraduate education, feeling that such a degree can be obtained in a factory-like setting with no detrimental effects (for a quick peek at the U of S policy, check out its
Integrated Plan; this is the Arts & Science page, but a link at the bottom shows the university's overall plan). The university's focus is on graduate research, which is (that's right!) funded from outside sources, such as government grants and monies given for research by private companies. The university gets a cut of this, and they would like to see the profits from graduate research increase. While that's all good for graduate students, undergrads are left with stale educations and ignored circumstances.
Here's what I'm thinking: if the university is trying to land all this money from outside interests like private companies, doesn't that put our institution in the same boat as Stanford and Yale? With this influx of money, doesn't that mean student tuition wouldn't really be necessary? Wouldn't this situation allow -- God forbid -- universities to offer the same expanded financial aid as those down south? I mean, really, if the quality of undergrad education is going to pot, then why should people be paying outrageous prices for it? Just a thought.
