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An Open Letter Concerning the Discussion Paper Issued by the Ontario Postsecondary Review Secretariat (Rae Commission)
6 Dec 04 – Recently the Ontario Postsecondary Review Secretariat issued a Discussion Paper concerning issues relevant to postsecondary education in the Province of Ontario. Numerous issues are discussed in the paper and I wish to address several that I think are of particular importance to universities.
As the Discussion Paper notes, Ontario has an excellent University system which is under funded. Thus universities are on the verge of serious financial difficulties that will compromise the quality of university education and the morale and well being of students, faculty and staff.
In my view the solution is fivefold. First, the province should increase the grant awarded to universities for each student by category. Second, the province should ensure that funding formulas are fair to all institutions. Third, the province should consider the special needs of disabled and mature students and of recent immigrants. Fourth, the infrastructure needs of the universities must be addressed. Fifth, the province should ameliorate the debt accumulated by universities for academic buildings built as a result of the Ontario government Superbuild program. These initiatives will require additional public funds to be put into the Ontario University System, but considering that Ontario ranks near the bottom in public support for university education in jurisdictions in North America this solution is entirely reasonable.
I take issue with several of the suggestions put forward in the Discussion paper. These concern further assignment of costs to students, the role of research in universities and university governance.
The first is deregulation of tuition fees. Higher tuition fees will be an impediment to university attendance for many students. It doesn’t make mathematical sense to say that putting a fraction of the increased fee income into scholarships and bursaries would sufficiently compensate for the disincentive for attendance created by deregulation of fees. It is not a zero sum game and many, especially perhaps in the lower middle class, would not receive this financial aid.
An income contingent repayment program has been proposed to allow for the financing of higher costs to the student, loading the student with debt to be repaid when employed. To me this does not make either economic or social sense. First, we benefit economically from having a higher proportion of university educated people entering the work force. Second, we will be burdening students with a debt repayment load at a time when they should be participating as fully as possible in the economy, buying houses, furniture and appliances, activities important to the happiness of young people and to our economy. Third, this debt load will be a factor in discouraging young people from starting families in a country where the birthrate is low and where having children brings long term benefits to the economy. Fourth it will seem unfair to young people that they carry a higher personal debt load than university graduates of the previous generation.
It is important that all universities be research oriented. The university is the only institution that does basic research and critiques all aspects of society at arm’s length. Further, research informs teaching. Generally, one must be research active, staying abreast of recent developments in the field, to teach at the university level. This is especially important for senior undergraduate courses.
The autonomy of the universities must be maintained. Provisions for internal and external accountability must be strengthened to ensure openness and transparency. Bringing the universities under the Freedom of Information Act is one step towards better accountability.
By contrast, inserting another level of bureaucracy between the universities and government will only result in increased costs and bureaucratic and regulatory inefficiency, if not quite chaos.
Finally, it should be recognized that retention rates may vary by institution. Fostering the attendance of disadvantaged and other special groups is socially responsible and, in my view, economically responsible, and may result in lower retention rates than universities with uniformly elite admission standards. Surely progressive institutions should not be penalized by undue emphasis on retention rates in the funding process.