All Posts Tagged With: "funding"
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.
Profs worry quality of university in Ontario falling
Pressure government to increase funding in lead-up to Ontario budget
Students at Ontario’s universities are getting short-changed when it comes to their education as their schools struggle with larger class sizes, outdated facilities and less full-time hiring, according to a new report.
A survey of faculty and academic librarians to be released Monday finds a significant degree of concern that the quality of higher education in the province has fallen over the past three years.
In all, just under 40 per cent of those asked felt quality had declined, while only eight per cent saw an improvement.
“They’re struggling to deliver a meaningful education to increasingly large classes,” said Prof. Brian E. Brown, president of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations.
“We can’t just move our economy ahead if we leave our students behind.”
Almost 2,000 faculty members and academic librarians at 22 universities across the province responded to the association’s questionnaire between Feb. 16 and March 13.
More than 60 per cent said class sizes had increased over the past three years, while 22 per cent said full-time faculty who had left their posts were not replaced.
Brown blamed “chronic underfunding” for the situation, saying the results suggest the Ontario government’s “Reaching Higher” plan put in place in 2005 has failed to deliver quality improvements.
That plan, which the government called the “largest multi-year investment in 40 years” in higher education, promised an additional $6.2 billion over five years – a 39 per cent increase from 2004.
Currently the province spends about $6 billion a year on post-secondary education and training.
Nevertheless, the association, which speaks for about 15,000 faculty and academic librarians, is urging the Liberal government to spend another $1.5 billion in the coming year on higher education when it delivers its budget on Thursday.
Audit: Native education fund is a mess
Feds aren’t tracking $300 million per year in aboriginal funding, says report
The Harper government flunks accountability, says a new audit that blasts lax controls over almost $300 million meant to help native students get to college or university.The bruising report calls for tighter tracking of that cash and says funding has not kept pace with tuition hikes.
Ottawa does not trace how many native kids beat staggering odds to make it through high school only to be denied help to go on.
It spent $292 million last year to help 23,000 students — that’s down from a high of 27,000 funding recipients a decade ago.
“No analysis has been conducted by program management at headquarters on the impact these factors are having” on the Post-secondary Education Program, the audit says.
Instead, it has been left to the national Assembly of First Nations to estimate that more than 10,000 qualified students are on waiting lists.
“It is important that clear and appropriate performance measures, results indicators and targets be developed,” the internal Indian Affairs audit concludes.
“Sound performance measures allow management to track progress, measure results and make ongoing program adjustments to improve results and achieve objectives.”
Conservatives hail higher education as a top priority in their efforts to ultimately raise native living standards.
But auditors found the post-secondary program is hobbled by lax reporting, growing education costs and haphazard disbursement. The result is glaring gaps across the country.
In 2007-2008, the audit says, per capita amounts disbursed to First Nations ranged from $1,609 for each individual aged 18 to 34 in Ontario compared with $941 in the Atlantic region.
“No rationale was found to support the different allocation methods used in the different regions,” it says.
Moreover, the per capita amounts do not reflect fluctuating needs on reserves and are considered “flexible.” Auditors found surplus post-secondary funds in some communities are then spent on other needs — while students in other parts of the country go without.
- The Canadian Press
Minister’s chief of staff to professors: “Shut up!”
Details coming out regarding a recent meeting between representatives of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) and the federal minister responsible for science and technology, Gary Goodyear, paint a picture of a sort of one-sided screaming match. Some details of the raucous meeting have been noted by The Globe and Mail: The screaming erupted [...]
Details coming out regarding a recent meeting between representatives of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) and the federal minister responsible for science and technology, Gary Goodyear, paint a picture of a sort of one-sided screaming match. Some details of the raucous meeting have been noted by The Globe and Mail:
The screaming erupted last Wednesday afternoon, just down the street from Parliament Hill, in the offices of a Conservative cabinet minister.
The CAUT’s follow-up letter to the minister below is not quite flattering for the minister or his staff:
Top medical journal slams Harper budget
Group says proposed stimulus could trigger brain drain of top research talent
The Canadian Medical Association Journal is less than impressed with the recent federal budget:
Canada’s leading medical journal is urging scientists and doctors to push Ottawa to improve funding for research, calling the recent federal budget “short-sighted” and saying it could trigger a brain drain of top talent.
In an editorial published yesterday, the Canadian Medical Association Journal warns the Conservative government’s stimulus package invests too heavily in “volatile” resource-based industries – shovels instead of test tubes – missing a chance to invest in large-scale Canadian research that puts in peril years of recruitment of top doctors and scientists.
The editorial notes cuts to Canadian research come as both Britain and the United States pump money into research, particularly under Barack Obama’s administration, saying the trend “makes for an embarrassing comparison with Canada.”
Harper’s government fails science test: CAUT
Teachers’ group says Canada’s best academics will probably head south
This opinion piece, written by the executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, discusses the consequences of the Harper government’s recent cuts to academic research funding and its “attempts to dictate what research is done” in universities. The following comment echos the concerns of many:
At the same time, the Obama administration is poised to usher in $6-billion in new funding for the two American granting councils — the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. The fallout? We’re very likely to see many of Canada’s best academics leaving for the US where their research can be properly funded.
Student loan debt: it’s a good thing
Billions owed to the government proves many people benefit from student loans
The Internet was flooded today with reports that Canadians collectively owe billions and billions of dollars to the federal government, borrowed to finance postsecondary studies. Seriously, this is a good thing. A few reasons? Sure.
1. It shows that students believe that they will be able to find good jobs in the future. Let’s face it, most people aren’t struggling into 8 a.m. introductory calculus for the sheer joy of it, but because they need it to get their degree, which they hope will in turn pay off later in life with higher wages. If students are willing to borrow a lot today, that means they collectively believe that their income tomorrow will be even higher. The odds of the collective being wrong are always low.
2. Choice is a good thing. Suppose you have just graduated from high school in two different versions of Canada. In one, your only option is to enter the workforce or fund your education yourself. In the second, our version, you have an extra choice: enter the workforce, pay your own way, or get a good deal on a government loan. Nobody is coercing people to get student loans. In fact, the only rational reason to get a student loan is because it’s a better alternative than anything else. The fact that the program is so heavily subscribed only indicates the government has been very successful at providing people better alternatives than anything else they can find.
3. Consumption smoothing is a good thing. Suppose you are faced with two choices: Live off $50,000 every year of your life, or live off $90,000 for half the years and $10,000 for the other half. There are no savings instruments. Most people would take the constant income. The student loan program allows people to smooth their consumption over the life-cycle where banks fear to tread, consuming more as a poor student and less as a productive member of society.
Neither of these points have addressed what is implicitly being called for in many of these articles, namely to give students even more money to attend university. This is a question economists are ill-equipped to directly judge, since it is mostly a moral one. Is it correct to forcibly take money from the rest of society via taxes and give it to students? I will leave that to philosophers, but I can say some other things.
4. Over a quarter of student loans in Canada fall into default, i.e. are not fully repaid. So effectively we are giving lots of people grants under the current structure anyway.
5. Government transfers have bad incentives. When the government raises tax rates, it reduces the incentive for people to go out and earn more money – if the tax rate was 100 percent, how much would you work? How much would you thus pay in taxes to fund the educational system? Higher taxes make us collectively poorer as a whole, so if you want to use taxes to fund public projects, you should be sure it is worth it.
6. No-strings-attached grants have bad incentives. If the government decided to fully pay for all costs of education – in the extreme case, living expenses as well – I would not be surprised if I chose to remain a university student for life. Unfortunately, there’s a real cost to hiring professors and maintaining universities, and someone has to pay for it. I’ve also had professors argue that higher tuition fees keep poor students out and thus enhance the academic experience for the dedicated students. I am personally just shy of willing to go there.
Iggy, that’s a great idea
Ignatieff’s excellent proposal: university funding should follow students across provincial borders
From the Halifax Chronicle Herald’s Q&A with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff:
Q: Post-secondary funding goes to where the student comes from rather than where the student goes to school. Would you change that if you had the chance?
A: I think we should. It won’t be easy because provinces from which the students originate will make a claim that it should stay with them. But I think we ought to encourage and reward the universities that actually attract students from out of province, and there’s a nation-building reason for that. It’s not merely (that) you want to reward Atlantic Canada for having good universities, but you also want to give Canadians, young Canadians, a national experience.
One of the things that builds a nation is, you know, if someone is born in Ontario, spends some time in Atlantic Canada, someone in Atlantic Canada spends some time out in Calgary. So we ought to have a financing system that incentivizes that, that encourages (us) to create a generation of Canadians that have national experience.
Provinces like Nova Scotia get the short end of the stick in the current system. The province has such a strong network of successful universities that it attracts thousands of students from across the country — but instead of that being a success story, it’s a budgetary problem for Nova Scotia. Why? Because when a B.C. student goes to school at St. Francis Xavier or Dalhousie, B.C.’s higher education tax dollars (and federal dollars transfered to BC) don’t follow that student. The government of Nova Scotia, a net importer of students, ends up footing the bill. As a result, Nova Scotia’s most successful industry—higher education—is a drain on the province’s budget and a perennial problem. The system’s upside down.
This idea of having funding follow university students has been around for decades. I was advocating it way back in the last century, when I was writing Globe and Mail editorials. But it’s never had a chance to grow tired. It’s never been tried.
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Victory!
Is giving more students less money really a success?
Many groups in the know are applauding (some more cautiously than others) yesterday’s announcement to replace the Millennium Scholarship Foundation with a government-run grant program. But many questions remain and the changes will lead to some casualties that have been overlooked so far.
As previously reported, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty confirmed the death sentence that has been hanging over the head of the Millennium Scholarship Foundation (MSF) when unveiling plans for a new grant system in the 2008 budget. The MSF’s $350 million annual budget along with the $138 million currently distributed through Canada Access and Study Grants will be rolled together into one big national grant program to be administered by the Canada Student Loan Program.
Although the Liberals are painting the move as a simple rebranding, the end of MSF will certainly change the landscape of student financial aid in Canada—if not only for the seemingly positive changes (the transparency of being a government program) but also for the smaller functions of the Foundation that have been quietly left out.
The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (the Canadian Federation of Students’ rival) was quick to point out that the Foundation was not only about delivering grants, but also about research. “The Foundation was the only group that was doing research on access issues. Looking at Aboriginal students, low income students, and first generation students,” said Zack Churchill, CASA national director. “We haven’t seen any indication from the government that the federal research will be picked up.”
And while Churchill’s critics might argue that we have, say, StatsCan for post-secondary research, the Foundation’s unique approach to research will surely be missed.
Alex Usher, vice president and director (Canada) of the Educational Policy Institute, said that the government program will likely focus only on financial aid research. “There will nobody speaking for access anymore in terms of research,” he said.
Another Foundation program that was not mentioned in the budget was its merit-based scholarships. MSF awarded $12.6 million in scholarships annually. The scholarships were unique in that they took community involvement into account as well as marks.
Franca Gucciardi, executive director of the Canadian Merit Scholarship Foundation, said that this program was very important in terms of supporting talent and leadership. “As Canadians, we’re good at need, but not as good at merit,” she said.
Although the budget included a new and prestigious merit-based scholarship program for doctoral students, it doesn’t replace merit-based support for undergraduate students. “You don’t get to do your PhD unless someone supports you to do your bachelors,” Gucciardi said.
Although the Educational Policy Institute said the changes were largely a good news story, it found a couple of major holes in the proposed program. The potentially costliest problem is whether independent students are eligible for the grants. As it stands, it appears that independent students (those out of high school for long enough that they are not required to include their parent’s income when applying for grants and loans) will be able to apply.
Because the grants will be based on family income rather than need (costs minus resources), almost every independent student who applies will be eligible because their income will fall below the line. There may be as many as 500,000 independent students currently enrolled in Canada. But the budget for the new grant program only aims to provide funding to 240,000 students. Whoops! This could make the program cost well over $1 billion.
Usher also pointed out that at least two Canada Study Grants seem to be missing from the mix: funding for students with dependents, and female doctoral students. From the Educational Policy Institute’s discussions with Canada Student Loan officials so far, it appears that the $70 million in grants for students with dependents has been rolled into the new grant money. Officials did confirm that grants for students with disabilities will continue to be awarded.
One thing that everyone seems to agree on is that basing the grants on income instead of need is a positive step. The Foundation’s grants were awarded according to the amount of money needed for the student’s educational program minus the student’s resources. Basically, if two students had exactly the same family income, but one chose to go to an expensive university and move away from home and the other chose to attend their community college and live with their parents, the first student would receive more grant money. It meant that students were being rewarded for making more expensive choices.
The new system will not take into consideration the costs of education, but only the family income of the student. The indirect result will be that more money will flow to college students in comparison to university students.
So although student groups can breathe a sigh of relief that the existing money going into grants in Canada won’t be axed along with the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation, they should probably crunch the numbers before declaring victory (as the CFS did oh so quickly). MSF distributed an average of $2000 to 120,000 students each year. The new program plans to hand out grants to 245,000 students next year, but with no new money. So the individual student recipients will be getting less cash. Victory?
