Financing University Education in Canada

1
Financing University Education in Canada

• Paul Davenport
• President, The University of Western Ontario
• Round table on Access to Post-Secondary
  Education (Financing and Mobility)
• Standing Committee on Human Resources
  Development and the Status of Persons with
  Disabilities
• Ottawa, May 16, 2001

2
Meeting the Accessibility Challenge

• With echo of the baby boom, Canada faces its
  most significant accessibility challenge since
  the 1960s.
• Our student assistance programs must be
  dramatically improved if we are to meet the
  accessibility challenge.
• Accessibility is important to students and their
  parents because they know university education is
  one of best investments they can make.
• We need to increase public operating funding for
  our public universities, to keep them accessible
  and reverse our growing competitive disadvantage
  with the U.S.
• A key federal priority for university operating
  funds should be funding the indirect costs of
  research.

3
Improving the Student Loan System

• Sharing the risk of borrowing for university
• North America vs. Europe on tuition and loans
• Fairness and accessibility
• Debt at graduation for UWO students in 2000
• 30 no debt
• 55 some debt but less than 35,000
• 15 over 35,000
• average debt, all students, 16,000
• The key issue of graduate student funding

4
Four Steps Toward Improved Student Assistance
and Accessibility

• 1 Reduce the Paper Create a single, seamless
  system with joint funding (CSL 60, OSAP 40)
• 2 Share the Risk Introduce an income-contingent
  payback system with grants to those most in need
• 3 Change outdated rules
• ? Treat medical residents as students for
  interest purposes
• ? Raise the cap on allowable tuition in
  Ontario
• 4 Promote graduate studies Double the NSERC
  SSHRC budgets, including budgets for graduate
  fellowships

5
Three Myths We dont need more university
graduates in Canada because

• 1 We already have the highest university
  participation rate in the world
• 2 The knowledge economy only needs graduates in
  Information Technology
• 3 University graduates make poor salaries and
  cant pay back their loans
• All three statements are false.

6
Degree completion is increasing throughout the
OECD
7
Myth University graduates do poorly in the
labour market

• The public is beginning to realize a
  technical education at a college or vocational
  school is considerably more valuable than most
  university degrees...The way the educational
  dollar is divided does not reflect the fact more
  young people should acquire practical skills in
  colleges and fewer should attend university.
• Diane Francis, Universities Grabbing too Big
  a Slice of the Education Pie, Financial Post,
  September 22, 1998.

8
University graduates have lower unemployment
rates (annual rate for 1997)
9
The income premium for a university degree vs.
a college certificate increases with age in
Canada ( premium, 1998)
10
Student default rates in Ontario 1996 and
1999, OSAP Loans
PVS Private Vocational Schools
11
Real per student public funding of public
universities
12
Revenue per student in public universities11
American States Advantage over Ontario (),
1997/98Can _at_ PPP 82 cents US
13
Cuts lead to a growing student-faculty ratioFTE
Enrolment per Full-Time Faculty in
Ontario1987-1988 to 1999-2000
14
Relative student-faculty ratios in public
universities (US 100, 1998)
15
By 2010 should have hired almost as many more
faculty in Canada as we now have
16
Meeting the Accessibility Challenge

• With echo of the baby boom, Canada faces its
  most significant accessibility challenge since
  the 1960s.
• Our student assistance programs must be
  dramatically improved if we are to meet the
  accessibility challenge.
• Accessibility is important to students and their
  parents because they know university education is
  one of best investments they can make.
• We need to increase public operating funding for
  our public universities, to keep them accessible
  and reverse our growing competitive disadvantage
  with the U.S.
• A key federal priority for university operating
  funds should be funding the indirect costs of
  research.

17
Financing University Education in Canada

• Paul Davenport
• President, The University of Western Ontario
• Round table on Access to Post-Secondary
  Education (Financing and Mobility)
• Standing Committee on Human Resources
  Development and the Status of Persons with
  Disabilities
• Ottawa, May 16, 2001