Showing posts with label tuition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tuition. Show all posts

16 December 2014

Our Gift to Nova Scotia #nlpoli

As of March 31, 2014,  Memorial University had an annual deficit of about $330 million.

In 2013-2014,  the annual cost of subsidising tuition for out-of-province students at Memorial was $112 million.

The provincial government operation subsidy to the university has doubled since 2004.

Those are a few of snippets from the Auditor General’s 2014 report.

-srbp-

05 September 2013

The Impact of the Tuition Freeze #nlpoli

As students head back to Memorial University, you can see the impact the ongoing tuition freeze is having on the university’s budget.

You can see it in the policy to pass credit card handling fees on to students.  In the official university organ – the Gazette – the university claimed it eliminated the fee.  That’s not true.  The fees still get paid.  The university just transferred responsibility for paying them directly to students who want to pay fees using a credit card.  According to a November 2012 story in the Telegram, the university expected to recover about $550,000 by making students pay the extra fees.

That seems like such a measly sum compared to the university budget, but when the administration has very few ways of raising capital, they have to squeeze every penny until the Old Girl  screams.

-srbp-

Related:

16 July 2013

Learn Now. Pay Later. #nlpoli

A college or university education has an undeniable value both to the student and to the society as a whole.

But should either party bear a disproportionate share of the cost of the education? 

Of course not.  The challenge for policy makers in the provincial government and at the university and the colleges in the province is how to strike a balance between the two. The one that’s been in place for the past decade works extremely well for students whose representatives  – not surprisingly – are pushing for an even sweeter and sweeter deal regardless of the financial implications to the university and the provincial government. 

Free tuition is fundamentally unworkable.  There’s no reason to believe that free tuition would improve participation rates,  successful completion rates, or any other desirable outcome for society.  By the same token, forcing students to bear the full cost of tuition up front would likely serve as a powerful deterrent since few individuals and families could afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars post-secondary education costs these days.

There might be an alternative.

08 July 2013

Some inconvenient truths: goring some educational sacred cows #nlpoli

Friday turned out to be Post-Secondary Education Day with a post here on the impact of the freeze on tuition fees and a fascinating Telegram article on the Conservatives’ 2011 campaign pledge to replace student loans with needs-based grants.

Tuition was a bit of an issue in the 2011 provincial general election.  The Tory pledge is basically a variation on the New Democrat campaign platform plank in the same election to make wipe out tuition altogether. 

Supporters of the low or free tuition argument claim that by charging a tuition fee at all, “we are basically discriminating against poor people and the middle class.”  The Canadian Federation of Students likes the current tuition freeze and is loving up the idea of grants that would make tuition even cheaper or free.

The local rep commented in the Friday story in the Telegram that the current system “is the envy of people across the country.”

Really?