Alarm bells should be ringing! Have you heard the news? A recent article in the Globe and Mail (Oct. 5th, 2024, p. B5) shouts out: “Our Broken University System Holds Us Back”. Broken? How could our university system be broken? How did it get broken? If it’s broken, how do we fix it?
The first point to make is the source. The Globe and Mail is a newspaper based out of Toronto. It covers a national story like this one extremely well. It has been recognized as one of the best newspapers in the world.
Now to the main point - are you aware that our higher education institutions in Canada are publicly funded? This means that the majority of the funds to cover operating costs for universities originates from our taxes. This is where my apologies come in - sorry to have left you with this! The dilemma that universities find themselves in now did not happen overnight. Depending on who is in power at both the federal and provincial levels, there have been times when there were years of tax cuts taking place. And, as it states in the article, we have slowly starved our universities of funding over the past decades. The constant cuts and declines in public support have resulted in the majority of Canadian universities facing growing operational deficits, putting many on the verge of financial ruin! When an institution has a deficit, what are their options? Usually, they resort to cuts in service, including staff, and cuts in programs. Our government has expected these institutions to look for other means of funding.
Since the 1990’s, our higher education institutions have managed to find private- resource income - income enough to be able to increase overall funding. This has mainly been done by increasing the number and the tuition costs for international students. For example, there is a college in Ontario whose student body is 80% foreign students. Instead of our leaders in government maintaining the high-quality of our universities by ensuring there is more than adequate funding in place, universities are instead left funding the program on the backs of international students.
To give you an idea of the extent of this, in 2023 in Ontario, students from India alone channeled more money into its higher education system than the province did - for a total of $2 billion. The increased operating budgets of practically all universities since 2010 have come from international student tuition fees. So, it does sound broken! But how do we fix this problem? Do we want to fix this? Do we need to fix this?There should be a resounding “YES!!!” heard from all of us!
As Canadians, we pride ourselves in our publicly funded institutions. Our universities have become ‘best-in-class’ - truly, global leaders in providing high quality education, research, and innovation. That such a major point of pride for our country is built upon the financial exploitation of international students is incredibly wrong! We need to make sure our leaders of government know that we know there is a problem, and we need to move back to a proper, well-funded higher education system. Our elected officials must come up with a plan to fix it! So what can we do? 1 - If there is an election, please familiarize yourself with which candidate has the same concerns about our higher education system, and vote for that candidate. And 2 - find out who your federal and provincial representative is, and let them know your feelings on this very important issue. It matters - especially if you are a student at one of our universities!!!