Universal Post-Secondary wäre bemerkenswert günstig
https://matteoraso.substack.com/p/universal-post-secondary-would-be
Universal Post-Secondary wäre bemerkenswert günstig
https://matteoraso.substack.com/p/universal-post-secondary-would-be
11 Kommentare
Being the most educated nation on earth sounds terrific and would be an enormous economic benefit. But more important is meeting people’s material needs. We need to get to a place where people pursue education out of passion and less for a leg up on an impossible job market.
Universal housing and expanding pharmacare are higher ticket priorities for me, personally
We’re already one of the most educated countries in the world, we have a higher tertiary education rate than some European countries that have free university.
I think one of the problems though is that it leads to education inflation. We’re already at the point where people list an undergrad as a requirement for an entry level job. This harms people who don’t go to university, and even in a world where it’s free, not everyone will go.
Subsidized university, like we have, is already a policy that largely benefits the upper class. Take that amount of money and put it into healthcare, a policy the benefit everyone more broadly.
I don’t know why people are surprised by „education inflation“, seems like a normal course of action in a prosperous and increasingly educated society.
People build schools -> People go to school -> people live longer -> people dedicate more of their life to school -> people get more educated -> people demand more schooling, rinse & repeat the cycle.
I feel like we’ve seen this play out for over a century. Our grandparents were probably complaining that some jobs now require a Gr. 6 education in their day.
So long as it’s up to the provinces it’ll never happen. One of the things that sucks about our form of federalism.
It’s a complex issue. We’re one of the most educated countries on earth and yet our new grads have some of the worst outcomes. Jobs I was doing 20+ years ago which required a college diploma and 0 years experience now require a BSc and 2-3 years experience to do quite literally the exact same work.
That, to me, signals a massive imbalance in our workforce. If we’re going to talk about billions of dollars to subsidize education, I’d rather see it funnelled towards the trades, college entrepreneurship, and graduate/ professional schooling. This idea that’s been perpetuated of a BSc being more prestigious and valuable than specialized diplomas or trade certifications needs to stop.
Our country NEEDS tradespeople like never before. The fact there were as many social science degrees conferred last year in Ontario as there were new apprentices in ALL trades programs combined is just shocking. And that’s not to say psychologists, poli sci, and sociologists aren’t valuable. But I think most people are aware that a society needs far less of those people than they do electricians, plumbers, carpenters, industrial/automotive techs, etc.
Spend the money to funnel people towards these careers. Whether that’s completely eliminating any trade school fees, paying for their tools, setting up entrepreneurship funds to allow them to start their own business within X years of certification.. I don’t care how it’s done, find a way to encourage a boom in the trades.
The same can be said of grad students and professionals attending vet/med/dental/etc school. The brain drain we’re seeing needs to be throttled. So whether that’s offering to offset large % of student loans to doctors who practice in Canada for X number of years, or dedicated funds for PhD holders to be able to bring to employers and spend on Canadian research.. again I don’t know the ideal solution, but something should be found to improve retention here before we talk about just shovelling money at BSc and other undergrad programs which are very clearly oversaturated.
Universal post secondary was tried in the uk and it basically just led to the government subsidizing the education of the upper middle class. The current system of financial aid covering most of tuition based on income is a much better way of reducing inequality
Should the population, through government, determine that universal education would be sociologically and economically beneficial to the country, I am all for it. At the same time, perhaps they could devise a program to help former students pay down their student debt to reduce that significant financial burden on them.
By reducing the debt load of post-secondary students, these two programs could perhaps free up more ’spending‘ money (for homes, say) within the economy.
A better use of funds would be universal childcare or universal pre-K, both of which, granted, would probably be more expensive.
As the internet has generally democratized access to information, there is generally less demand on post-secondary education than there used to be. Not that there still isn’t, of course. But the point is that the most in-demand jobs in Canada right now are not accountants or lawyers or software engineers. The jobs that are the hardest to fill right now are HVAC, electricians, riggers, etc.
It would be a great idea if we could trust our institutions to properly allocate programs, but as we have seen in practice, they will just mill to fill their pockets, and Canada will be left holding the bag with no ROI, undoing a golden opportunity.
It could be cheap but is it valuable? Higher education should only really be a priority for those that need it, not just another thing for people to feel obligated to complete before working.
I don’t know if we need more university grads to be honest. Seems like we have a shortage of skilled trades, nurses and doctors .