Archive for April, 2009
Freezing tuition: Where’s the proof?
Continuing the debate over the Manitoba government’s recent decision to end its decade-long tuition freeze to allow fees to increase in the coming fall semester, Winnipeg Sun columnist Tom Brodbeck throws out this challenge to student leaders: I would like to put out a challenge to all the student leaders who say freezing tuition for [...]
Continuing the debate over the Manitoba government’s recent decision to end its decade-long tuition freeze to allow fees to increase in the coming fall semester, Winnipeg Sun columnist Tom Brodbeck throws out this challenge to student leaders:
I would like to put out a challenge to all the student leaders who say freezing tuition for everyone helps attract low-income people to universities and colleges.
I’m putting out the challenge because I keep hearing from student leaders who discredit the many reports that conclude freezing tuition does not make post-secondary education more accessible for low-income families.
Surely to goodness these student leaders have data and research to back up their claims that freezing the price of tuition universally improves access for low-income families.
I know student leaders — who I assume are enrolled in academic courses where evidence-based decision-making is taught — would never take positions on complex matters without appropriate research.
I assume they are employing the critical thinking skills their professors and instructors are trying to teach them in order to draw logical conclusions.
Which means they must have the data and the research to substantiate their claim that by freezing tuition for everyone, including middle- and upper-income families, a greater proportion of low-income people are able to attend universities and colleges.
Counselling and cash improves student retention
At-risk students earned $750 by maintaining at least a 2.0 GPA, among other requirements
A research project underway at three Ontario colleges has shown that the provision of student support services in combination with financial incentives has a marked impact on the persistence of students who are deemed at risk of dropping out.
The study, sponsored by the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation and the Ontario government, found that at-risk students who received academic, career and mentoring supports as well as the promise of $750 earned higher grades and were less likely to drop out of their program.
The key findings of the research show the following:
- One year after the Foundations for Success program began, 67.2 percent of students who received directed advisement to the full range of supports (including academic, career and mentoring supports) and a financial incentive were still enrolled in their program.
- Almost 65.8 percent of students who received directed advisement to the supports but no financial incentives were still enrolled.
- Only 62.6 percent of students in the control group (which did not receive direction to supports and did not receive financial incentives) were still enrolled.
- Adjusting for students who did not participate in any of the Foundations for Success program activities, the increase in retention was 6.4 percent.
Note that the students who received the $750 Foundations for Success fellowship were required to complete 12 hours of activities related to their individual at-risk factors, maintain at least a 2.0 GPA, and remain eligible for full-time enrollment at the start of the following semester.
The full report is available for download here in .pdf format.
I hate buying textbooks
I just finished buying a textbook for one of the courses I’m taking this summer. $103 later, I have a textbook which I will use for twelve weeks and then put on a bookshelf to collect dust. Really, $103 for a seventh edition that hasn’t actually changed much since the first. Have to love the [...]
I just finished buying a textbook for one of the courses I’m taking this summer. $103 later, I have a textbook which I will use for twelve weeks and then put on a bookshelf to collect dust.
Really, $103 for a seventh edition that hasn’t actually changed much since the first. Have to love the racket that is getting a degree.
Mystery donor gives more than $74m to female-led colleges
At least 15 schools received anonymous donations ranging from $1 to $10 million
NEW YORK – A mystery donor has gifted millions to at least 14 colleges run by women.
New York’s Hunter College said Monday it received $5 million in the fall and realized only recently that more than a dozen other colleges nationwide had received similar donations. Hunter College President Jennifer Raab says the money “couldn’t have come at a better time.”
The City University of New York school says the donor earmarked $4 million for scholarships.
The school will use the rest to update its library and give students more group study space.
At least 13 other schools with women presidents have received anonymous donations ranging from $1 million to $10 million in the last two months.
The gifts total at least $74.5 million so far.
- The Canadian Press
Former Harper adviser says true academics don’t run for office
The real question is: why would anyone want to be a backbencher?
The latest issue of Academic Matters is online. Included in this month’s issue is an article by political scientist and former Conservative campaign manager Tom Flanagan discussing why “true” academics rarely run for political office.
In the past, Flanagan says Canada has had plenty of political leaders who have taught at the university level. However, with the exception of a few, none spent a substantial amount of time as full-time academics engaged in the research of the academy.
He notes that university professors make more than the most Members of Parliament and that leaving the Ivory Tower for Parliament Hill results in another sacrifice: the lost of the guaranteed job-security of tenure.
Other observations made by Flanagan include the fact that politics is not about the pursuit of truth or knowledge; but the pursuit of power and popularity.
To my mind, the most important observation he makes is that many academics avoid politics because they are forced to put their field of study aside for the years they are in public office. An MP who is elected into a majority parliament will serve for five years. In many fields of study, an academic absent for five years will face great difficulty reintegrating into their field and will have damaged their academic career in their absence.
In the piece, Flanagan also addresses his own personal experience as a senior staffer for both the Reform and Conservative parties.
One observation Flanagan fails to make is the difference in freedoms afforded to backbench MPs compared to the lowliest tenured academic. A tenured academic can express pretty much any opinion they have on any matter of public interest. A backbench MP is much like a children’s pull-string doll: pre-programmed to say maybe three or four meaningless answers no matter what is being asked.
There is also the matter of how irrelevant Parliament has become with the centralization of power in the Prime Minister’s Office. (A centralization that Flanagan has helped contribute to.)
The real question is not why academics don’t run for Parliament, the real question is why any esteemed academics would want to banish themselves to the backbenches of Parliament and have less influence over the direction of Canadian public policy than a member of the rock band U2?
On the web:
Academic Matters – www.academicmatters.ca
Funding science and research: Harper vs Obama
Canadian gov’t cuts $148 million in research funds, U.S. spends multi-billions
The Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson reviews the stark contrast between the Harper government’s cuts to basic research funding and the Obama administration’s multibillion-dollar commitments to scientific research and education:
The Obama administration’s multibillion-dollar investments coincide with the Canadian government’s decision to cut $148-million in funding to the three agencies that support basic research at Canadian universities.
The Conservatives point in response to $2.75-billion they have dedicated to university infrastructure and scientific equipment.
But the two countries are pursuing fundamentally different approaches to funding research in the midst of a recession and with manufacturing industries in chronic decline.
While Prime Minister Harper concentrates on targeted funding in certain specific areas, in hopes of generating marketable ideas that promote economic growth, President Obama is pursing a comprehensive approach aimed at fundamentally reorienting government, schools, universities and the private sector in favour of science and technology.
Lower tuition fees and accessibility
Report exposed Manitoba’s tuition freeze policy for what it really was
Winnipeg Free Press columnist Dan Lett has written an epilogue on the Manitoba government’s recent decision to lift the tuition fee freeze in that province. Lett makes the following point about lower tuition fees and accessibility:
The tuition freeze has been wildly popular with students, of course, but it has been under constant attack from the schools, which claim it starves them of needed revenue. Earlier this month, the province released a report written by Ben Levin, a former deputy education minister, that pretty much exposed the tuition freeze policy for what it really is.
Levin noted there was no connection between lower tuition fees and accessibility, the NDP government’s chief motivation for maintaining the freeze. Levin recommended modest tuition increases for university and college students, the first in a decade.
Levin’s conclusions were hardly shocking
Two years ago, Ontario and Quebec completed exhaustive studies of the relationship between tuition fees and accessibility. The conclusion was that lower tuitions make education more affordable for those who could afford to go; for those who could not afford to go, lower tuitions did nothing.
Artificial Intelligence
A new cartoon blog by Scott-Dobson Mitchell that’s all about education. Except when it’s not.
UQAM strike ends, York’s CUPE 3903 settles for deal
The book closes on two major university labour disputes.
A bit of university labour news being reported today as faculty at Universite du Quebec a Montreal have voted to accept a new contract and the union representing T.A.s, G.A.s, and contract faculty at York University, CUPE 3903, ratified a new three year contract on Friday.
The Montreal Gazette reports classes will resume Monday at UQAM following the ratification of a new contract by nearly 1,000 professors and full-time language instructors. The signing ends a strike which began March 16 and was threatening to cause the cancellation of the winter term.
York University and CUPE 3903 have officially reached a negotiated settlement to their contract dispute which resulted in the longest university strike at an English-language university in Canadian history. The strike only ended when the province legislated CUPE 3903 back to work. Following this, an arbitrator was appointed to create a new contract. However, the two sides were able to make their own deal which was approved by all three units of CUPE 3903 earlier this week.
The new contract will last for three years and includes pay increases of three per cent in each year of the contact.
Al-Qaeda goes to college
‘The war on terror has been a double-edged sword for higher education’
From The Times Higher Education:
This is a fascinating book, but it isn’t about al-Qaeda attacks on any US university, or even its sympathisers in American higher education. As the author explains: “So far, no jihadist terror attacks have been directed at US universities.” What Castagnera writes about are the ways in which the “War on Terror” has affected what universities do and how they do it.
His thesis is as simple as it is cheering. “The war on terror”, he writes, “has been a double-edged sword as far as higher education is concerned.” It has led “on the one hand (to) a loss of innocence”, owing to “the inexorable, irresistible demand for ever-tighter security measures”. But on the other, it has provided “an enormous windfall for many colleges and universities”, defined in terms of better campus security, large amounts of government funding for terrorism-related research and generous gifts to academia from Saudi Arabia.
College students grade their schools
Who gets top marks? More than 164,000 Canadian students have their say
Below you will find the results from two major student surveys: the Ontario Colleges Key Performance Indicators Survey and a similar survey of British Columbia college students, the B.C. Diploma, Associate Degree and Certificate Student Outcomes Survey.
For survey results, click here, or scroll down to the bottom of this page.
THE SURVEYS: WHAT THEY ARE AND HOW THEY WERE DONE
The Ontario and BC surveys, each commissioned by their respective province’s colleges, ask dozens of questions about the college educational experience—inside the classroom and after graduation. The answers help each college assess the quality of its programs and services, and compare itself to its peers. The surveys can also be used by the public to do the same.
Since 1998, colleges have been mandated by the Ontario government to collect and report performance data in five areas – graduate satisfaction, student satisfaction, employer satisfaction, employment rate, and graduation rate. (For more details on how these surveys were done, click here.) In 2008, 24 Ontario colleges participated in the surveys. These results featured here represent the opinions of more than 109,000 Ontario college students, 39,350 graduates and almost 8,000 employers.
In British Columbia, college students have been surveyed by the province since 1988. Every year, former students are interviewed nine to 20 months after completing all, or a significant portion, of their college program. The questionnaire includes a set of core questions covering the major themes of the survey: employment outcomes, further education, program ratings, and student satisfaction. (For more details on how these surveys were done, click here.) In 2008, more than 16,000 former students at 20 B.C. colleges participated in the surveys.
The information contained in these surveys can serve a range of purposes. For governments and the institutions, the responses can help highlight things that are going wrong — or right. Results can point to the success of new programs or initiatives — or the need for them. Colleges use the numbers to change or develop programs, and in B.C., labour market analysts use the data to assess the supply and demand of labour in the province.
Most importantly, these surveys, and their college-by-college results, can also be used by potential college students. You can find out what current students, recent grads and employers have to say about the education and training offered by 47 different educational institutions in Ontario and B.C.
Manitoba colleges to grant baccalaureate degrees
From The Winnipeg Sun: Manitoba’s public colleges, including Red River College, will soon be given the legal power to grant bachelor’s degrees. The provincial government introduced legislation yesterday that once passed into law will allow Red River, Assiniboine and St. Boniface colleges to create four-year programs and confer degrees on their graduates.
From The Winnipeg Sun:
Manitoba’s public colleges, including Red River College, will soon be given the legal power to grant bachelor’s degrees.
The provincial government introduced legislation yesterday that once passed into law will allow Red River, Assiniboine and St. Boniface colleges to create four-year programs and confer degrees on their graduates.
UK’s National Union of Students denounces potential strike
Traditional ally of lecturers union says students need a strike “like a bullet in the head”
In a move that is shocking observers, the United Kingdom’s national student lobbying organization is speaking against a potential summer strike by that nation’s university lecturers.
The University and College Union, which is looking for an 8% pay rise this year, has warned university employers that it will ballot members in higher education over threatened job cuts.
…
Wes Streeting, NUS president, said: “Given the effects of the current economic climate on the graduate jobs market, students need industrial action by university staff like a hole in the head.”
We’d never see such talk on a nation level in Canada.
B.C. political parties on tuition fees
Liberals to continue caps, NDP promises a freeze, Greens pledge 20% reduction
British Columbians will go to the polls in a provincial general election on Tuesday, May 12. The major political parties are offering the following directions for tuition fee policy:
After having deregulated fees during their first term starting in 2002, the B.C. Liberals are pledging to continue with capping increases to the rate of inflation. The NDP is promising a freeze, while the B.C. Greens would roll back fees by 20 percent. The B.C. Conservatives would give tax incentives to new graduates moving into industries with skills shortages.
Drop fees, not birth rates!
NB mayor says free tuition would encourage procreation, increase population
A number of arguments have been put forward in favour of the elimination of post-secondary tuition fees over the years, including arguments associated with increasing access for those who cannot afford post-secondary education and mistaken notions about equity and taxation.
The mayor of Saint John, New Brunswick has proposed another reason for eliminating tuition fees: procreation. Saint John Mayor Ivan Court believes that free tuition for post-secondary education might encourage Saint Johners to have more children and thereby increase the city’s population.
Can you imagine the placard slogans?
Highlights
Ontario Colleges Key Performance Indicators Survey
The 2008 Key Performance Indicators survey found generally high levels of satisfaction among Ontario college graduates, their employers and college students.
Among the findings:
• 93.3 per cent of employers were satisfied with how Ontario colleges had prepared their graduates for the workforce
• 88.9 per cent of 2007-2008 Ontario college graduates were employed within six months of graduation (down slightly from 90.5 per cent in the previous year)
• 82.7 per cent of graduates were satisfied with the usefulness of their college education in achieving their goals after graduation
• 78.4 per cent of students were satisfied with the overall quality of services, programming and resources available at Ontario colleges
GO TO:
How it was done
Ontario Colleges Key Performance Indicators Survey
In 1998, the Ontario government mandated the province’s 24 colleges to collect data for Key Performance Indicators in five areas: graduation rate, employment rate, graduate satisfaction, employer satisfaction and student satisfaction. The purpose of the annual study is to provide college administrators with feedback on the quality of their programs, as well as to provide accountability information to the government and other post-secondary stakeholders in Ontario. The KPI results for graduate employment, graduate satisfaction and employer satisfaction are used to distribute performance funding to the colleges. In addition, the results of these surveys provide prospective students with valuable information when making their post-secondary choices.
GO TO:
Graduates are contacted by telephone and asked for their comments about their college programs and their experiences since leaving college. In order to interview grads six months after graduation, surveys are conducted at three points during the year, each period lasting for eight weeks. If graduates give their consent, their employers are also contacted. A four-week Employer Satisfaction Survey is conducted by phone shortly after each graduate survey. Employers are questioned about how well they feel the college has prepared its graduates to meet their needs as an employer. They are not asked to evaluate the graduate. In the 2008 survey, more than 39,350 graduates completed interviews out of a total graduate population of 59,235. Nearly 8,000 employers took part in the survey.
Meanwhile, student satisfaction surveys are paper based and conducted each February with results tabulated by an external survey consultant. All students beyond first semester are surveyed. More than 109,000 college students completed the latest survey in February 2009. In addition, surveys may be conducted in advance for students in co-op and clinical placements who are unavailable to be surveyed in February and for students who are approved for such non-traditional program delivery options as online or weekend courses.
Note: When displaying the survey results, Maclean’s has ordered the colleges in descending order according to the percentage of survey participants who chose “Very Satisfied/Satisfied” as a response. For the Graduation Rate indicator, colleges are listed in order of those that had the highest percentages for graduation. The Graduate Employment Rate indicator is displayed alphabetically, however, as many factors in addition to post-secondary training can affect employment rates. For its part, Colleges Ontario advises that when considering the survey data “college-to-college comparisons (ranking) could produce misleading results, because of college size, local employment conditions, program mix and graduate demographics. The data from each college should be considered on its own.”
Who took part
Ontario Colleges Key Performance Indicators Survey
Each year, 24 Ontario colleges survey current students, recent graduates and their employers to collect data for Key Performance Indicators (KPI) in five areas: graduation rate, employment rate, graduate satisfaction, employer satisfaction and student satisfaction. The 2008 survey reflects the views of more than 109,000 college students, 39,350 graduates and almost 8,000 employers.
GO TO:
U.S. students go bargain shopping at Canuck universities
American media highlights value of our “colleges”
Canadian university recruiters south of the 49th parallel have been enjoying a good year with many Americans desperate to find more affordable higher education options than those presently available from private universities. This is especially true for Maritime universities who recruit in the Northeastern U.S.
The savings for American’s coming across the border are significant. A private American university can charge upwards of $40,000/yr, whereas a year at a Canadian university costs about $20,000. Factor in a favourable currency exchange, and the savings increase.
American media outlets have taken note of the trend and have provided invaluable positive coverage for Canadian institutions.
On Christmas Day, the Boston Globe published a lengthy story about the Canadian “college destination.”
Last week, NBC News aired a story on America’s most watched newscast about how affordable Canadian universities are in comparison to private US colleges:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Having talked to recruitment officials out east, there appears to be an increase in applications this year. It remains to be seen how many American students come north this fall. This could be a record year for Canadian universities.
Manitoba tuition freeze thawed
Province lifts decade-old freeze, allows universities to charge students up to 4.5 per cent more
As reported by The Winnipeg Sun:
For the first time since the 1998-99 school year, university and college students in Manitoba will see an increase in their tuition fees this fall.
The provincial government announced this morning that it is lifting its decade-old tuition freeze, and will allow universities to charge students up to 4.5% more for tuition this year. That amounts to an average of about $135 more for a typical arts or science student. Colleges will be allowed to charge students $100 more this year.
