All Posts Tagged With: "pse research"
New federal tax credit for graduates?
Finance committee sticks to economic role of universities–research “must be commercialized”
Unsurprisingly, those hoping for the federal government to take a robust role in higher education will have to wait. At least that is the view of the Standing Committee on Finance, which filed its pre-budget report yesterday. The report contains a litany of recommendations, including a few of direct interest to students and universities, that may or may not pop up in next year’s budget.
Though the committee met with several “witnesses,” or gaggles of interest groups, there doesn’t appear to be much connection between what the committee was told and what it recommended.
On education, the primary concern of witnesses were measures that would require the federal government to intervene deeply into provincial jurisdiction, and coordinate higher education policy from Ottawa. Chief among these measures would be a “Post-Secondary Education Act.”
Modeled on the Canada Health Act, a PSE Act would require that the Canada Social Transfer be divided between social services and post-secondary education. Stipulations would be put in place to make the funding contingent on the provinces actually spending the money on education, rather than on roads and other items. Presently, the only requirement placed on provinces with respect to the CST is that eligibility for services, like social assistance, not be tied to residence. They are free to make residence a requirement when concerning admission to university, however. While the federal government announced such a change in 2007, it was all but forgotten a year later.
After reviewing witness submissions, the committee instead recommended:
The federal government, in partnership with the provinces and territories, explore the development of a national strategy to promote greater emphasis on Canadian education services exports.
So while the committee did recommend the government explore a “national strategy” of sorts, and though universities may welcome it, it is not the type of strategy witnesses advocated. Why even bother calling for submissions from Canadians?
As for student aid, the committee advocates a new refundable tax credit be created to encourage graduates to relocate to regions having difficulty recruiting workers:
[It is recommended that] the federal government create a refundable tax credit for new graduates. The proposed tax credit should be available to those who move to designated regions and engage in employment in their field of study.
The question that comes to mind is, wouldn’t this duplicate policies already in place? Sasaktchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick–who all have trouble attracting workers–already provide tax credits (or rebates) to graduates who live and work in the province, no matter where they went to school. And generous ones at that.
ANSSA also concerned about PSE research
Will the disappearance of Millennium’s research further erode national PSE leadership?
Paris Meilleur over at the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations has publicly added her voice to those concerned about the loss of the Millennium Scholarship Foundation research.
As reported here, the Foundation will be replaced next year by the Canada Student Loan Program. But the research that has been done by the Foundation was not mentioned when the government announced the change.
Meilleur, like a lot of other people, is concerned about this. In a blog post on the ANSSA website, she writes, “Thank goodness Millennium has been around to assert early outreach as essential in PSE policy. But that never should have been their responsibility in the first place. They were filling the research, policy and creativity vacuum that exists in Canada around PSE policy because of a continued lack of federal leadership on the topic. And now that Millennium’s research funding has not been renewed, it doesn’t look good for those concerned with learning more about access and how to create meaningful programs and policies that can address all of the access barriers.”
