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COU releases more details on Ontario Universities Online consortium

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Last week, we reported that the Council of Ontario Universities was developing a new consortium to develop online learning in Ontario. On April 18th, the COU made additional details available on the online learning initiative. Ontario Universities Online (OUO) will seek to “expand online learning for students in the province and beyond” and “meet the growing demand for courses and programs delivered outside the traditional classroom setting or courses that blend both traditional and electronic delivery.” This is the first indication that the OUO will focus on traditional online courses, as well as so-called hybrid or blended courses where in-class instruction is supplemented by online resources.
 
Seven “core institutions” have committed resources to the project, and are providing “core leadership”, according to the COU press release. These institutions include the University of Waterloo, Brock University, University of Guelph, McMaster University, Ryerson University, Wilfrid Laurier University and York University.
 
OCUFA is monitoring the development of the OUO closely. It is our strong belief that all online learning initiatives should be focused on promoting student success, not cutting costs. It is also vital that online learning in Ontario protect academic freedom, respect the intellectual property rights of faculty, and preserve local autonomy in academic planning.

Worldviews pre-conference event held at the University of Toronto

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On Tuesday, April 15, 2013, a pre-conference event was held for the Worldviews Conference on Media and Higher Education. Titled “The War on Knowledge?” the event brought together several experts to discuss if and how mass media might be challenging – or even attacking – the university.
 
The panel featured Melonie Fullick, a PhD candidate in York’s Faculty of Education; Clifford Orwin, Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto; Janice Gross Stein, Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto; Scott Jaschik, Editor of Inside Higher Ed, and was moderated by Rick Salutin, noted novelist, playwright, journalist, and critic. An excellent keynote address was given by Tony Burman, formerly of CBC and Al-Jazeera, and now Velma Rogers Graham Research Chair at Ryerson University.
 
This conversation will continue at the Worldviews Conference, which will be held from June 19-21, 2013 in Toronto. The goal of the conference is to explore the increasingly complex, and occasionally fraught, relationship between higher education and the media. The conference will embrace a variety of perspectives, and emphasizes discussion, engagement, and participation. Registration is now open.

Data Check: Student debt isn’t just a problem for graduates

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The high cost of a postsecondary education is borne not only by those who complete their degrees. A recent study by the US National Center for Education Statistics examined the federal student loan burden of American students who had not completed college or university in 2001 and 2009, and found they owed comparatively more, in addition to suffering higher rates of unemployment. These trends were amplified at private, for-profit institutions.
 
The rate of non-completion at public and private not-for-profit institutions did not change much between 2001 and 2009. The rate of borrowing amongst “non-completers” also remained much the same. Borrowing by students at public two-year colleges increased, but the inflation-adjusted amount fell. The story at for-profit institutions was very different. Non-completion rates increased, and borrowing by students at for-profits skyrocketed from 57 to 86 per cent. The amount borrowed increased by over 40 per cent.
 
Per credit earned, non-completers at for-profit institutions incurred debt at a rate almost 60 per cent higher than their counterparts who graduated. At public and non-for-profit private institutions, the actual amount of debt incurred per credit was much lower, but again, non-completers at these institutions took on proportionately more debt than graduates.
 
With employment rates amongst non-completers noticeably lower, it is not surprising that the amount of debt, as a percentage of annual income, would be significant for this group. Across all institutional types, the median ratio of debt to income rose between 2001 and 2009. For all non-completers, the ratio rose from 24 to 35 per cent. For the most indebted non-completers, the increase was even more dramatic, from 77 to 99 per cent of annual income.
 
There are lots of reasons not to finish a degree. We need to make sure that university is affordable for all students, so that no one leaves school crippled by debt.

Council of Ontario Universities working to establish new online learning consortium

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The Council of Ontario Universities (COU) is working to establish a new online learning consortium, in order to “keep Ontario universities at the forefront in the use of technology to advance teaching and learning and improve students’ access to online courses and programs.” The new initiative, Ontario Universities Online (OUO), recently seconded Cathy Kelly, Director of the University of Waterloo’s Centre for Extended Learning, to lead the development process.
 
According to an announcement on the University of Waterloo’s website, a key goal of the new consortium is to “enable universities to collaborate, so they can deliver programs and supports more efficiently, or at lower costs, and provide programs and supports together that they could not do alone.” Specific details on the OUO are not yet available, but OCUFA will be monitoring its development closely and will provide a more thorough analysis when further details are available.
 
OCUFA believes that online learning can play an important complementary role to face-to-face forms of student engagement, and can be of particular benefit to students who live a great distance from university, or who have responsibilities that make in-class attendance difficult. We also favour a consortium model that allows universities and faculty members to retain control of their own courses, while preserving academic freedom and autonomy in academic planning. As with most things, intent matters. If online learning is pursued to enhance student success, then it will have a beneficial effect on educational quality. If, however, it is viewed as a cost-cutting exercise, it will tend to undermine the learning experience. Repeated experience has shown that quality online learning is actually more expensive to deliver than in-person course

Emmett Macfarlane: “Universities need to innovate, but put down the sledgehammer”

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Over on the Inside Agenda Blog, there is an excellent piece by Emmett Macfarlane, a professor at the University of Waterloo. In it, he explains that there is a need for universities to be innovative, but that the current proposals for change (such as MOOCs or teaching-only institutions) are not the panaceas they are made out to be. Moreover, the currently monologue around university reform ignores the great deal of innovation already occurring within our universities:

The biggest problem with reform proposals that demand wholesale change is that they ignore the extent to which universities are already adapting and innovating. The sudden, recent proliferation of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is a natural extension of the online courses that have been offered to university students for years. MOOCs are, by definition, designed to go beyond normal university enrollment and they provide unprecedented access to content previously only accessible to a privileged few. This is an excellent development for that reason, but MOOCs will not replace degree-granting educational streams. Further, online education can supplement, but cannot supplant, the value of face-to-face interaction that comes from human interaction, class discussions, seminar classes, honours thesis projects, research assistance, and the host of other opportunities that emanate from the physical classroom.

The whole piece is very thoughtful, and can be accessed here.

This article is crossposted with Academic Matters.

HEQCO finds that Ontario’s universities are productive, efficient

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In a paper released today, the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) reviews the performance of Ontario’s postsecondary education system in terms of access, quality, productivity, and social impact. It confirms what Ontario’s professors and academic librarians have known for years – our universities are efficient, productive, and accessible (though more work is needed to ensure participation for under-represented groups, such as Aboriginal and first-generation students). Unfortunately, the paper also furthers HEQCO’s tunnel-vision approach to narrow outcomes-based accountability regimes.

HEQCO argues that promoting quality is the “next frontier” in higher education. OCUFA certainly agrees that quality must be a focus of the provincial government going forward – we have been arguing for quality enhancements for the past two decades. However, HEQCO’s conception of “quality” is confined to poorly defined outcome measures. While outcomes – attainment rates, employment, and research output – are important, they are only one part of the quality picture. To really understand what is happening in Ontario’s universities, we must also consider inputs (such as public funding) and processes (such as student-faculty ratios and student engagement). Outcomes are useless unless we understand the resources and approaches that created them. Otherwise, continuous improvement is impossible.

The paper also continues HEQCO’s narrow focus on labour market outcomes. While the employability and labour market success of graduates is extremely important, job training is only one of the many important individual and social functions of the university. Followed to its logical conclusion, over-focusing on job training will distort our institutions and diminish their ability to educate and engage with students and their community.

This paper reflects HEQCO’s disappointing belief that improvements to quality must somehow be made in the absence of new government funding. This is problematic for three reasons: it ignores the transformative role that public investment has played in creating the current system; it posits fiscal constraint as an immutable fact, rather than the result of political choices; and it provides a convenient excuse for the provincial government to ignore the urgent financial needs of the sector by offering false-hope alternatives. OCUFA will continue to argue that the only way to ensure quality and accessibility is sustained and robust public investment. Anything else is just fiddling at the margins.

Data Check: New tuition fee framework hides troubling trends in government funding

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A lower cap on tuition sounds nice, but lurking beneath is a more ominous cap on government funding.
 
The new tuition framework, announced last week by the Ontario government, won’t change the fact that tuition fees for at Ontario’s universities are already the highest in Canada.
 
For the next four years, universities can hike tuition for graduate students by five per cent per year and three per cent per year for undergraduates; the overall average must not be more than three per cent. For an undergraduate in their first year today, tuition fees in their final year could be eight per cent higher if universities choose to focus increase in graduate student fees, or nine per cent higher if they apply three per cent increases across the board. Grad student tuition could be almost 22 per cent higher in the final year of the new framework.
 
With expected enrolment increases, universities’ revenue from student tuition fees could rise by four and a half per cent in each of the next two years. Provincial government funding, meanwhile, is currently planned to increase by barely half a per cent in each of the same two years. Once expected inflation – low by recent standards – is taken into account, the combined effect is still to reduce total per student university revenues by one per cent in each of the next two years. In an already under-funded system, that kind of decrease is hard to take.
 
For students, the shakeout depends on how universities decide to divvy up the shakedown. For universities, a larger proportion of funding will come from students, less from government, and inflation will reduce the effect of both. OCUFA has long argued for a freeze on tuition fees, accompanied by new government investment. It’s a shame that the new policy does neither.
 
Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, New Tuition Framework Reduces the Cap on Tuition Increases
Statistics Canada, University tuition fees, 2012/2013

McMaster faculty ratify new agreement

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The McMaster University Faculty Association (MUFA) has ratified a new, four-year agreement with their administration. The new deal includes a 1% pension offset in year one; a lump sum of $1250 and a 1% pension offset in year two; and 1.5% increases in year three and four, with lump sums of $1850 and $1925 respectively. The pension offsets compensate for an increase in pension contributions for MUFA members.
 
The agreement also includes enhancements to medical and dental benefits, as well as a new structure for professional development allowances.
 
According to MUFA’s memorandum of understanding with their administration, the deal does not need to be ratified by the Board of Governors and will take effect on July 1, 2013.

HEQCO releases recommendations on Ontario’s postsecondary system, strategic mandate agreements

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Today, the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario released the recommendations of its “expert panel” convened to review the Strategic Mandate Agreements (SMAs) submitted by each university and college in Ontario. Overall, the panel recommends that the Government of Ontario take a more directive, interventionist role to drive greater differentiation and competition within the sector.

OCUFA has long been critical of HEQCO’s position on differentiation, and this new paper contains many problematic suggestions:

  • The idea that government should play a more active role in “designing” the system fails to protect universities from the vicissitudes of short-term political decision-making. Governments are notoriously bad at long-term planning in higher education, and shifting political priorities may lead to an unstable and unproductive planning environment for the sector. Ironically, this will make effective system design much more difficult.
  • The paper suggests that “learning outcomes” be used to apportion operating funding, despite failing to outline what outcomes are desirable, who defines the outcomes, and how they should be measured. In addition, funding models that only use outcome measures tend to make it difficult for under-performing institutions to improve, by removing funding from the institutions that need it most.  
  • The panel recommends that there should be more competition for operating funds in Ontario. Such a model  will inevitably create institutional “winners” and “losers”, thereby harming students at institutions judged to be somehow inferior. OCUFA believes that the funding formula should aim to support a high quality experience for every student.
  • The paper suggests that funding decisions be made, or at least heavily informed, by an external body. HEQCO advocates for an “expert” model for this validating authority, but does not specify how these experts should be selected, or who they should represent. Given HEQCO’s fondness for former administrators and representatives of the private sector, it is likely that they will push for a similar model.

The paper also makes frequent use of phrases like, “The evidence suggests that…” without indicating what that evidence might be, or where it might be found.

Ultimately, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that HEQCO’s advocacy for third-party validation is an indirect argument for expanding HEQCO’s mandate and budget, adding a certain element of self-interest to the argument.

OCUFA believes strongly that any reforms to Ontario’s universities should be developed through meaningful consultation with those who know the system best – students and faculty. HEQCO has so far embraced a model – both in its behavior and its recommendations – that depends heavily on advice solicited from outside the sector, provided by unaccountable panelists who develop their recommendations behind closed doors. This is not a model that will develop recommendations sensitive to Ontario’s unique challenges and responsive to its needs.

OCUFA agrees that a serious discussion needs to occur on the future of Ontario’s postsecondary system. We will continue to work to build the quality and accessibility of our institutions with those who share this commitment.

Reality Check: New report shows that austerity does more harm than good

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A new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ (CCPA) Ontario office reveals how austerity policies are damaging the province’s economy. More damning, the austerity agenda is also slowing the rate that Ontario reduces its deficit, and is therefore self-defeating.
 
The CCPA makes several important observations:

  • The case for austerity – a supposed “deficit crisis” – was based on deliberately misleading assumptions, and a flawed analysis of Ontario’s fiscal situation and options.
  • The deficit was caused by the recession, not by over-spending.
  • In the absence of a jobs strategy, employment has not returned to pre-recession baselines.
  • Income inequality in Ontario has worsened, and is now the second-worst in Canada (after Alberta).
  • Cuts to the public sector create a “fiscal drag” which stifles economic growth

The study also reveals the false logic of the austerity agenda and the public sector constraint that comes with it:

“There is no need for a downward shift in provincial program spending. There is no need to reinvent, or privatize, public services. There is no need to curtail fundamental labour rights in the name of deficit reduction. The data in this report point to the self-defeating logic of the current cycle enveloping Ontario: recession causes a deficit; austerity is advanced as the only solution to the deficit; but then, cuts to public spending, wage freezes and job losses create a fiscal drag on an already tenuous economy, potentially pushing the whole fragile system back into recession.”

The report concludes with recommendations for kick-starting real economic growth in Ontario, including a higher minimum wage, increased public capital spending, and “sector development strategies” that revitalize manufacturing and other key industries.

Austerity logic has been active in Ontario’s higher education sector, and has led to declining per-student funding, rising tuition, and attacks on the rights of faculty. As the CCPA suggests, re-investment in the province’s universities is key to student success, lower unemployment, and an innovative economy. 

Register now for the Worldviews Pre-Conference Event, The War on Knowledge

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Higher education is under attack. Internationalization, politics, and worldwide economic trends are forcing universities and colleges to ask themselves tough questions. Criticisms are commonplace in the media, while new communications technologies threaten traditional institutions. So what lies ahead?

Let’s talk about it.

Join Worldviews 2013 on Tuesday, April 16 from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. for a special pre-conference debating the interplay between higher education, media, and society. This free event will feature a short keynote presentation, panel debate and reception at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto.
Featuring:

  • Keynote speaker: Tony Burman, Velma Rogers Graham Research Chair, Ryerson University, former Chief Strategic Advisor for the Americas, Al-Jazeera
  • Moderator: Rick Salutin, Canadian novelist, playwright, journalist, and critic.
  • Janice Gross Stein: Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and Associate Chair and Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management and Negotiation within the University of Toronto’s Department of Political Science.
  • Clifford Orwin: Professor of Political Science, Classics, and Jewish Studies, University of Toronto, Fellow of St. Michael’s College and Senior Fellow of Massey College.
  • Scott Jaschik: Editor of Inside Higher Ed.
  • Melonie Fullick: a PhD candidate, McMaster University, researching post-secondary education policy and governance.

Registration is required (and free!), so save the date and register here!

This event is present by the 2013 Worldviews Conference on Media and Higher Education, co-organized by OCUFA. The conference is June 19-21, 2013 in Toronto.

OCUFA releases new issue of Trends in Higher Education on university “productivity”

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This week, OCUFA released a research paper examining recent proposals around increasing university productivity as part of its Trends in Higher Education series. The paper finds that the current discussion in Ontario is plagued by unclear definitions, problematic assumptions, and troubling policy ideas.
Reviewing the available evidence, the paper argues that:

  • The discussion in Ontario has no clear definition of productivity, which makes serious or useful discussion of the issue difficult.
  • Ontario’s universities have already made significant productivity gains – decades of under-funding and rising enrolment have meant that professors are already teaching many more students with much less public funding.
  • This productivity increase has done little to improve the quality of education at Ontario’s universities – in fact, by many measures quality has come under threat even as productivity has increased.
  • For professors and academic librarians, the most meaningful measures of productivity are attainment rates and research output.
  • Proposed productivity enhancements, such as increased faculty teaching loads and increased use of online learning, are properly seen as secondary to the broader goals of greater student success and research effectiveness.
  • Over-focusing on these secondary elements – like teaching loads and online learning – is ineffective and may harm larger productivity goals.
  • A productivity agenda focused on reducing government investment in higher education will have a negative effect on higher education in Ontario.

Read the full paper.

Ontario announces new tuition framework

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Today, Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities Brad Duguid announced a new tuition framework for Ontario’s higher education institutions. The new policy caps yearly increases for undergraduates at 3 per cent (down from 5 per cent under the previous framework, while graduate and professional fees will increase by 5 per cent (down from 8 per cent). Total institutional increases are also capped at 3 per cent. The Minister also announced that steps will be taken to align OSAP payments to fee deadlines, in order to help students avoid late penalties.

The new framework will last for four years.

While controlling tuition fee increases is an important first step to restoring affordability to Ontario’s universities, the new policy does not go far enough. OCUFA has long recommended that tuition fees in Ontario be frozen, with compensatory public funding provided to universities for lost tuition fee revenue. The new tuition framework does not have any provision for increased per-student funding for universities.

OCUFA is concerned that the new policy continues the slow privatization of Ontario’s universities by shifting costs onto students and their families. Students now pay for nearly 50 per cent of the operating budgets of universities (and at some institutions, more than half). The only way to ensure that our universities are accessible and high quality is through robust public investment. Unfortunately, the Government of Ontario is actually cutting funding to Ontario’s universities ($40 million this year, and $81 million next year, from both colleges and universities), fueling the ongoing decline in per-student funding. Ontario has the worst level of per-student public funding in Canada, and this framework will put the province even further behind.

In our 2013 Budget submission, OCUFA urges the Government to begin re-investing in universities now by freezing tuition, providing compensatory funding, hiring new full-time faculty, and increasing per-student funding to the national average by 2020.

Data Check: Federal budget comes up short on research dollars

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Funding for basic research is the cornerstone of knowledge creation and innovation. Unfortunately, the federal government is doubling down on commercialization and letting basic research languish.
 
At Canadian universities, the largest chunk of public funding earmarked for university research comes from the federal government. In 2011-12, federal grants and contracts accounted for three-quarters of public research funding to Ontario universities.
 
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) Alternative Federal Budget 2013 tells us that the federal granting councils responsible for allocating research funding based on peer-review criteria receive between one and eleven per cent less than they did in 2007. To reverse the cuts the Alternative Budget proposes an immediate 10 per cent increase in support to the research and granting councils. Including increases to graduate scholarships, the proposed increase is almost $250 million.
 
Federal Budget 2013 pays no heed. What “new” funding is promised for the granting councils is headed towards support for “research partnerships with industry,” not basic, curiousity-driven research. If the government’s Main Estimates for 2013-14 are anything to go by, their support for research is still three per cent lower. Budget 2013 continues the transformation of the National Research Council into a handmaiden of business.
 
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Alternative Federal Budget 2013
Council of Ontario Finance Officers, Financial Report of Ontario Universities
Government of Canada, Budget 2013
Government of Canada, Government Expenditure Plan and Main Estimates, 2013-14

Reality Check: Federal funding could make a huge difference to university finances

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Higher education is a provincial responsibility, which gives the federal government a free pass when it comes to scrutiny of university and college funding. But the decline in federal transfers for postsecondary institutions is a big reason why tuition is so high and per-student public funding levels are so low.
 
Federal funding for universities, colleges, and apprenticeships flows to the provinces through various transfer programs like the Canada Social Transfer (CST). The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) Alternative Federal Budget 2013 estimates that the failure of the CST to keep pace with enrolment and inflation has led to a $1.7 billion shortfall in core funding for higher education in Canada.
 
The funding gap has largely been filled by tuition. To reduce tuition fees, the CCPA proposes to restore dedicated federal postsecondary funding contributions to pre-1992 levels. If this additional funding were distributed based on provincial disparities in tuition, and the 1992-equivalent tuition adjusted for inflation, the reduction in fees for Ontario university students would be on the order of 60 per cent.
 
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Alternative Federal Budget 2013
Statistics Canada, Survey of Tuition and Living Accommodation Costs for Full-time Students at Canadian Degree-granting Institutions, Table 8; The Daily, September 12, 2012: University Tuition Fees