Adventures in Canadian Post-Secondary Education: May 2011

Tuesday, 31 May, 2011

Tuition not high enough: MemorialU business dean

Dr. Wilfred Zerbe, who came to Memorial University as Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration just last year, has recently been telling anyone who will listen that tuition fees at Memorial are just too low.

Zerbe's interest, at the moment, is increasing Memorial's MBA tuition fees, from about $4400 for a two-year program to around $10,000 a year.

Why would we do that?

Contrary to any published research I have seen, Zerbe believes that higher fees, for everyone including local students, will attract more international students. Here's how he put it today when speaking on Radio Noon, a CBC Radio show here in St. John’s:

The international students are very sensitive to the quality of the programs and services that they receive and so they are looking first of all at the academic quality which we provide very high levels of; at the same time they are looking for other programs and services and the kind of support they are going to get in order for them to reap the investment that they are making in terms of their time and their living expenses while they are doing an MBA and tuition is overall a very small proportion of the overall cost of the MBA degree. So they're looking to get...get return on their investment and they look at our MBA tuition and they miss perceive the low tuition as an indicator of low quality.

What about Memorial's reputation for lower tuition? And, the fact that lower fees have been a key part of the university's marketing strategy for graduate programs since before Zerbe made the long trek to Memorial from the University of Calgary last year? Here's how he, sort of, responded to that question on the radio today:

I think it is very different to talk about access to education for undergraduate students who are...and I think that's a very strong value of Memorial University, it is certainly one I would support that in getting that first degree. But our students have their...average is 29-years of age, they have six years of experience, most of them, 75% are already working, 24% have their tuition paid for by their employer, so this is not a case of providing access to getting a degree; this is about students who have a degree who are professionals and who want to advance in careers.

If you are interested in hearing more about Dr. Zerbe's theories on tuition fees, you can listen to the archived Radio Noon interview on-line here.

Ontario gov't to decide on satellite campuses

From The Toronto Star:

The Ontario government no longer will let colleges and universities decide where to set up satellite campuses — as many small and remote schools have done to gain a foothold in the populous GTA. From now on, Queen’s Park alone will determine if, and where, there will be new spinoff sites.

The change is a bid to avoid uneven clusters of higher learning in parts of Ontario that leave other corners starved for post-secondary programs, MPP John Milloy, Ontario’s minister of training, colleges and universities, said in a speech Monday to the Canadian Club.

Thursday, 26 May, 2011

PayPal co-founder gives $100K fellowships for not going to PSE

From NPR:

Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder and one of the first investors in Facebook, is proposing a controversial path toward more rapid innovation. Today his Thiel Foundation announced that it was giving 24 people under 20 $100,000 fellowships to drop out of school for two years to start a their own companies.

Some of the recipients are leaving first-rate institutions like Harvard and Stanford to take the fellowship. In a press release, the foundation's head, James O'Neill, said that in taking the fellowship they were "challenging the authority of the present and the familiar."

Wednesday, 25 May, 2011

Delaying post-secondary education: Who delays, how long?

New from Statistics Canada:

Not all high school graduates who attend a post-secondary institution go immediately after completing their diploma. An ever-increasing number of Canadian youth choose to remain out of the education system for a period of time prior to re-entering. A great deal of what we know about a gap year comes from other countries, particularly the United Kingdom. Who delays and for long are, however, two questions that remain to be answered in the Canadian context. The current paper uses all 5 cycles of the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS) to address the scant attention paid in the Canadian literature to the delay of the start of a post-secondary degree or diploma. Kaplan Meier results show that the median length of time between high school graduation and start of the first post-secondary education (PSE) program is 4 months; however, this appears to be substantially longer for males, First Nations youth, Anglophones, youth from Ontario, and youth whose parents have low levels of educational attainment. Equally influential were characteristics during the high school years. For example, youth with low marks, who worked many hours in paid employment while in high school, who skipped classes regularly, who took part in a lot of extracurricular activities not organized by the school, and whose close friends said they were not planning on going to PSE had median gap times between high school graduation and the start of post-secondary studies that were much longer than the average. Cox Proportional Hazard models confirm the robustness of several of the descriptive findings, including the effects of gender, province of high school, parental education, working during high school, marks, extracurricular activities, and the education plans of close friends.

Download the full report, Delaying Post-secondary Education: Who Delays and for How Long?, here in .pdf format.

Sunday, 22 May, 2011

Fees 'barrier' to part-time studies in Scotland

From the Donside Piper and Herald:

A quarter of Scots are put off studying part-time because of tuition fees, a survey has indicated.

One in four of more than 1,000 people polled said the costs associated with part-time studies would be a barrier to higher education.

Of those who were unemployed, around half said they would like to return to university, but 73% said fees prevented them from doing so.

The poll, commissioned by the Open University in Scotland and carried out by market research company Ipsos MORI, found that two thirds of people said the greatest benefit of returning to part-time higher education would be to boost their career prospects.

Hat tip to University World News

Thursday, 19 May, 2011

Women university students expect to earn less than men

From the Canadian Press:

Female university graduates looking for their first jobs expect to earn less than men, and those lower expectations may be the very reason the very real wage gap persists, a new study suggests.

"Women know they currently aren't earning as much as men so they enter the workforce with that expectation," said Sean Lyons, a University of Guelph researcher who helped conduct the study.

"Because they don't expect to earn as much, they likely aren't as aggressive when it comes to negotiating salaries or pay raises and will accept lower-paying jobs than men, which perpetuates the existing inequalities."

When asked to estimate their starting salaries, female students entering the work world predicted their pay cheques would be 14 per cent lower than the wages men said they expected to pull.

The gap widened over the course of their anticipated careers, with women expecting to make 18 per cent less than men after five years. And it was most pronounced in male-dominated fields such as science and engineering.

Education and retirement saving behaviours of Canadians

New from Statistics Canada:

The value of education and the benefits that flow from it are substantial for many Canadian families. Previous research has found that Canadian parents are strongly committed to their children’s postsecondary education. However, many parents of children under the age of 18 are confronted with a number of competing priorities. Based on data from the 2009 Canadian Financial Capability Survey (CFCS), this article examines who saves for postsecondary education and how they do so. To view this article click here.

Response to the report from the Canadian Federation of Students:

The rapidly rising cost of post-secondary is preventing many low-income families from saving for retirement, according to a study released today by Statistics Canada.

"Record high tuition fees are forcing families to choose between the educational aspirations of their children and saving for retirement," said David Molenhuis, National Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students. "Forcing families to choose between education for their children and retirement security is unfair and threatens Canada's future economic prosperity."

Nearly 80 percent of families from the highest income quintile report saving for both retirement and their children's post-secondary education. This number plummets to just 20 percent for the lowest quintile, according to the report. Conversely, while only five percent of the highest income families saved for post-secondary education and not retirement, this number grew to 26 percent for the lowest earners - more than the number that saves for retirement only (21 percent) or both (14 percent).

The study also found that the higher the level of tuition fees, the more families saved, demonstrating that Canadians are highly aware of the costs of higher education. Across the country, Canadians believe that an education after high school was important or very important, but savings were correlated directly with the cost of tuition fees and family resources.

"Canadians know the costs of post-secondary education and save what they can," added Molenhuis. "The problem for low-income families is not a lack of financial knowledge, but rather insufficient resources to save."

Friday, 13 May, 2011

Report on post-secondary policy in Nova Scotia

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has released a new report on post-secondary education in Nova Scotia. The report suggests that Nova Scotia students and their families are currently contributing almost three quarters of the funding for post-secondary education in the province:

The total cost to students of obtaining a university education is roughly $26,000 per year. This is almost three times as great as the government contribution of $9,509 per student per year. (p. 6)

The report covers a range of important areas including public investment, accessibility, equity, quality, accountability, and transparency. The authors take particular issue with "market-oriented, utilitarian" recommendations included in a recent government-commissioned report on future directions for universities in Nova Scotia.

Download the full report, Fairness, funding and our collective future: A way forward for post-secondary education in Nova Scotia, here in .pdf format.

Thursday, 12 May, 2011

New College of the North Atlantic president named

Excellent decision IMHO!:

The Honourable Kathy Dunderdale, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, today announced the appointment of Ann Marie Vaughan as President and CEO of College of the North Atlantic.

“Ms. Vaughan has worked in the post-secondary education field for more than two decades, most recently as Director of Distance Education, Learning and Teaching Support at Memorial University,” said Premier Dunderdale. “Her demonstrated leadership skills, combined with her extensive knowledge of our post-secondary education system, will ensure the college continues to grow, and to offer our students quality programs which are fully responsive to industry and provincial needs.”

Monday, 9 May, 2011

Maximizing post-secondary student persistence

My colleagues and I are presenting some of our research findings today at the First Year in Focus conference which is co-sponsored by McGraw-Hill Ryerson, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and College of the North Atlantic. Our presentation builds on a paper which was published in the Winter 2011 issue of the International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education.

The theme of the First Year in Focus conference is Maximizing Student Retention - Everyone's Responsibility, so it is fitting that one of the keynote speakers is Dr. Vincent Tinto. Vincent is a Distinguished University Professor at Syracuse University and the well-known author of Leaving College: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Leaving. His "model of student integration" is perhaps the most commonly cited model in student retention research, and has had great influence on our understandings of student persistence in post-secondary education programs. Yesterday, I had an opportunity to interview Dr. Tinto for a learning objects repository project. My script for the interview is here.

Friday, 6 May, 2011

Tough job market for young Canadians

From the Financial Post:

At a time when the job market is picking up, many young Canadians between the ages of 15 and 24 are finding the recovery has moved on without them.

In 2010, only three provinces (Newfoundland, PEI and Quebec) had increases in youth employment, said Roger Sauvé, author of the Vanier Institute for the Family’s The Current State of Canadian Family Finances 2010.

In the month of March alone, Statistics Canada said full-time employment rose by 91,000. At the same time, however, the number of employed 15 -to 24-year-olds fell by 17,000.

“Youth have been the biggest losers in the recession and through the recovery for a few reasons,” says Mr. Sauvé. “Typically, the last hired are often the first fired. Secondly, many people 55 and up, who continue to worry about their own financial situation, decided to hang on tight to the jobs they had.”

Wednesday, 4 May, 2011

Election over, back to blogging (sporadically?)

I know, I know. I've seriously fallen down on my blogging efforts these past few weeks.

Since late March, I have been focusing the little "free time" I have on helping to elect my friend Ryan Cleary in the federal riding of St. John's South - Mount Pearl. In the end, Ryan won by a large margin and, with Jack Harris' second consecutive landslide win, we are making history by sending two New Democrats to Ottawa to represent Newfoundland and Labrador.

Between my impending fatherly duties, my ever-gratifying work at Memorial University, and the upcoming October provincial general election, I won't be sitting back on my haunches anytime in the foreseeable future. So, if this turns into a year of blogging sporadically for me, my readers will understand why.

On the post-secondary education front (isn't that why you're here?), the Canadian Journal of Higher Education has released a new issue. Fresh from volunteering for the federal election campaign, I was particularly interested in the article titled "The Ideological Orientations of Canadian University Professors". Here's the article abstract:

This paper analyzes the ideological orientations of Canadian university professors based on a unique 2000 study of a representative sample of Canadian academics (n=3,318). After summarizing methodological problems with extant research on this subject, and tentatively comparing the political views of Canadian and American academics, the paper demonstrates that Canadian academics fall to the left of the political spectrum but are not hugely different in this respect from the Canadian university-educated population. Multivariate analyses reveal considerable heterogeneity in the ideological views of Canadian professors, suggesting that contemporary characterizations of the North American professoriate as left- or right-leaning tend to be overdrawn. Multivariate analyses demonstrate the importance of disadvantaged status and disciplinary socialization in shaping professors’ ideological views, although self-selection processes are not discounted.

Adventures in Canadian Post-Secondary Education