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American study casts doubt on Three Year Degrees

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A new study by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) suggests that three year degrees are not the productivity fix that many politicians think they are. In The Three Year Bachelor’s Degree: Reform Measure or Red Herring?,  the AASCU argues that the three year option does not meet student needs and is not likely to prove a popular educational option. In the words of the report, “regardless of the model employed by colleges and universities in delivering the three-year degree, students face significant financial, family and college preparation challenges in their efforts to finish a bachelor’s degree in a shortened time frame.”
 
The report also suggests that any attempt to implement a shortened degree option should only be done in consultation with faculty, students, and staff. During the consultations on university reform held this summer, the Government of Ontario heard deep skepticism on the three year option from almost all stakeholders. Clearly, this is not an idea that will work well for Ontario universities.

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

Inside the roundtables: Watch video of the Government of Ontario Summer Consultations

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Video of the July 19, 2012 consultation sessions at Fanshawe College have emerged online. The two videos, of the morning and afternoon sessions, provide an accurate sample of the kinds of discussion and comments made during the roundtables. The Minister of Training. Colleges, and Universities, Glen Murray’s afternoon comments are particulary interesting. They run from 00:35 to 13:10 in the second video.

Morning Session:

Afternoon Session

Ontario’s professors and academic librarians ask: “Why is Ontario one of the least affordable provinces for students?”

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Ontario’s professors and academic librarians are questioning why Ontario has one of the least affordable university systems in Canada, as revealed in a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). The report, Eduflation and the High Cost of Learning, compares university affordability for students across Canada.

“This study shows that students and families have been asked to carry a huge – and fast increasing – chunk of the cost of higher education in Ontario,” said Constance Adamson, President of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations. “The government has been shifting more and more of the cost burden onto our young people and their families, and it’s time to stop.”

Even with the Government of Ontario’s 30% Tuition Rebate, Ontario is the fourth-least affordable province for middle-income students and their families. For lower-income students, the rebate is only good enough to make Ontario the second-least affordable place to go to school. For students who do not receive the rebate, Ontario is the least affordable province for both middle- and lower-income students.

Worse, the current tuition fee policy – which sees fees rise at five per cent per year – will gradually undermine the tuition rebate and push Ontario to the bottom of the affordability index as other provinces roll back, freeze, or modestly increase their fees.

“We believe that the best way to control tuition costs and ensure affordability is through sustained public funding of our universities. Not only does this make it easier for all qualified students to attend, but it also builds high quality, world-class institutions,” said Adamson.

Unfortunately, Ontario lags behind the rest of Canada in public funding. The province is currently dead last in terms of per-student operating funding provided by government. Ontario’s universities receive 25 per cent less funding per student than they did in 1990, despite a huge increase in enrolment over the past two decades.  

“Investing in universities creates jobs and allows students to succeed. Investing in universities grows our economy. And, investing in universities builds a strong democratic society,” said Adamson. “The Government of Ontario has invested in universities before, with huge success. So why aren’t they investing now, when we need it more than ever?

Eduflation and the High Cost of Learning was commissioned by the Ontario University and College Coalition, an organization of students, faculty, and staff from across the province. OCUFA currently chairs the Coalition.

Data Check: The Great Recession continues to squeeze American students

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Four years after the beginning of the financial crisis, restrained public funding and domestic income means American students are looking for ways to reduce their educational spending and increase their in-study income, according to a new poll.

Inflation-adjusted tuition and mandatory fees at four-year public universities for in-state, domestic students has risen by nine per cent over the two years from 2009-10 to 2011-12, driven by State spending in the face of rising enrolment.  It is in that context that Sallie Mae and Ipsos published the results of a recent survey on How America Pays for College.

Their poll, conducted during the 2011-12 academic year, found that the lingering effects of the Great Recession led to a variety of cost-savings measures. For more than half of students, these include ways of reducing living costs – by living at home or adding a roommate. Half of parents reduced their spending on higher education, while two-thirds of students also cut back their own spending.

Half of the students also reported working more hours. They do so as they as also pick up a greater share of the burden of paying for their studies. The proportion of the 2011-12 cost paid by students from their own savings, income and loans was 36 per cent, compared to 31 per cent just two years beforehand.

The study also reveals that American students are shifting away from high-cost institutions to cheaper community colleges.  Of those surveyed, 29 per cent were enrolled in a community college, as opposed to 23 per cent in 2009.

With the highest tuition fees in Canada, Ontario may experience – or is currently experiencing – similar trends. OCUFA has long argued that we should not fund our higher education sector on the backs of students and their families. Robust public funding is the key to sustainable, affordable, and high quality post-secondary education.

Sources:
Grapevine, Fiscal Year 2011-12
National Center for Education Statistics, Postsecondary Institutions and Price of Attendance in 2011-12, Degrees and Other Awards Conferred: 2010-11, and 12-Month Enrollment: 2010-11 First Look (Preliminary Data); Digest of Education Statistics, 2011

 

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

OCUFA meets with Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities on university reform

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On Wednesday, August 29, 2012, OCUFA President Constance Adamson met with Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities Glen Murray. The purpose of the meeting was to follow-up on the recently completed consultations around the discussion paper, Strengthening Ontario’s Centres of Creativity, Innovation, and Knowledge.
 
The Minister indicated that the government hopes to announce its plans for higher education in later fall of 2012. This will likely coincide with the completion of the Strategic Mandate Agreement (SMA) process. The SMAs, announced in a July memo, will replace the multi-year accountability agreements and asks each university to state their priorities and how these priorities fit with the government’s objectives. It remains unclear what, if any, funding implications will come with the SMAs.
 
OCUFA reiterated its expectation that the feedback received during the consultations will be incorporated into any policy proposals going forward. President Adamson also highlighted the need for collaborative reform that makes use of the front-line knowledge of faculty and students.
 
OCUFA will be formally responding to the discussion paper in a written submission, to be published at the beginning of October.

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

Reality Check: Rising fees saddle students with stress, debt

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It should come as no surprise that, in a recent BMO survey, more post-secondary students identified paying for their education as a greater source of stress than their academic success or job prospects. With Ontario leading the way, average tuition increases in Canada have outstripped inflation and the share of university operating funding coming from the pockets of students and their families continues to rise.
 
With average domestic tuition at universities in Canada already around $5,500, and with other expenses pushing the bill to $10,000 per year, a third of respondents had trouble paying their bills, and a quarter are barely able to cover their expenses.
 
Of the surveyed students using loans to finance their education, more than half expect to owe more than $20,000 when they graduate. About 20 per cent anticipate owing more than $40,000. The most recent data from Statistics Canada indicates that members of the class of 2005 who borrowed to attend community college owed over $25,000 in today’s dollars; their counterparts in university undergraduate programs owed over $40,000.
 
The solution? More public funding for universities. We cannot continue to shift the burden of educational costs onto students and their families – they simply can’t afford it.

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

OCUFA attends final Government of Ontario consultations on university reform

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Last week, OCUFA representatives participated in Government of Ontario consultations at Algonquin College in Ottawa, and at UOIT in Oshawa. The Ottawa session was a full day, and covered a variety of themes. The UOIT session focused on “experiential and entrepreneurial learning”.
 
As with the other roundtables discussions, there was wide agreement on the need to develop policies and reforms suitable to Ontario’s unique higher education sector. It was also widely acknowledged by participants that while technology-enabled learning and experiential learning have real benefits for students, they require a large investment to be successful.
 
OCUFA will be distributing a summary of the consultations to our members shortly. In addition, we will be meeting with the Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities Glen Murray over the coming weeks to communicate our concerns and to learn more about the government’s plans for the results of the consultation. Our expectation is that all of the feedback received during the discussions will be incorporated in any proposals going forward.
 
OCUFA is currently preparing a formal written submission for the Government of Ontario, responding to the questions and options proposed in the discussion paper, Strengthening Ontario’s Centres of Creativity, Innovation, and Knowledge. This submission will be published on OCUFA’s website at the end of September.

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

German students, universities: Bologna’s promise of “more with less” is just “less”

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There has been much discussion of the Bologna Process – the effort to harmonize Europe’s higher education credentials – in Ontario lately, thanks largely to the Government of Ontario’s desire to create a three-year, Bologna-style credential. Two stories, out earlier this month, suggest that Ontario should be wary of copying the European model.

The University World News reports that the heads of Germany’s higher education institution believe the three-year credential “are failing to supply the graduates the country needs.” Moreover, they are not preparing students for academic careers or advanced research:

At traditional universities, [president of the Hochschulrektorenkonferenz, Horst] Hippler said, bachelor degrees may provide a vocational qualification, but it is simply not sufficient for an academic career.

“A bachelor in physics will never be a physicist,” he maintained.

Der Spiegal has a piece outlining student concerns with the Bologna three-year credentials. Namely, students are complaining that the new three-year bachelor’s degrees do not give them enough time to cover the necessary material, too little opportunity to raise money to fund their studies, and lead to over-crowded Master’s programs.

Certainly good reason to be cautious about importing Bologna to Ontario. OCUFA has long argued that three-year degrees are a reckless reform that will limit student mobility and hurt the quality of education received by students. The German example confirms that recklessness is no way to change a university system.

OCUFA attends government consultation on ‘technology-enabled’ and online learning

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On Thursday, August 9, 2012, OCUFA participated in a government consultation on the greater use of technology in Ontario’s universities and colleges, held at the University of Waterloo. The session was part of the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities’ (MTCU) roundtables on ideas contained within the discussion paper, Strengthening Ontario’s Centres of Creativity, Innovation, and Knowledge. Previous consultations, also attended by OCUFA, have been held at Humber College, Fanshawe College, Ryerson, and Laurentian.
 
The consultation was attended by students, staff, faculty, and administrators. Executive Director Mark Rosenfeld and Vice-President Kate Lawson represented OCUFA. Throughout the discussion, there was wide agreement that while technology and online learning can enhance education in some programs and for some students, the increased use of educational technology will require significant investment by the Government of Ontario to ensure student success.
 
This week, OCUFA also attended the final two roundtables Algonquin College and UOIT. Details of these sessions will be provided in next week’s OCUFA Report. OCUFA will also be making a formal written submission to MTCU, outlining our concerns with the discussion paper and consultation process, while providing alternative options for preserving an accessible, high-quality higher education system in Ontario.
 
We expect that the results of the consultation will be released in early fall. It remains unclear if the government will announce its policy intentions at the same time.

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

Data Check: Women make gains in PhD enrolment, while employment and salary still lags in certain fields

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Since 1992, women have made significant gains in PhD enrolment. However, in certain fields, they continue to lag behind men in employment and median salary.
 
The recent Statistics Canada report on the career paths of Canadian doctoral graduates echoes an earlier Statistics Canada release that traced the increasing proportion of doctoral students and graduates who are women. Less than a third of PhD enrolment in 1992, women now account for about 45 per cent of graduates of doctoral programs.
 
The pattern varied, depending on the field of study. Women who graduated in 2005 were over-represented in some fields – notably the life sciences, psychology and social sciences and “education and other fields”. In Ontario, only 20 per cent of female survey respondents held engineering doctorates and 27 per cent had advanced degrees in computer, mathematics and physical sciences.
 
According to the data, the gender gap in full-time employment for PhD graduates also varies by field for the class of 2005. Although female graduates from Ontario programs in life sciences and in computer, mathematics and physical sciences had full-time employment rates comparable to those of their male counterparts, women in “education and other fields” and in engineering experienced employment rates 10 percentage points below that for men. The gap in employment for female psychology and social sciences grads was five percentage points.
 
In the two fields where the full-time employment rates of women were comparable to their male colleagues, median salaries for female grads in Ontario were actually higher than those of Ojntario men. However, women’s median salaries in other fields lagged be. The earnings gap ranged from $2,000 for those in psychology and social sciences to $6,000 for engineering doctorates.
 
Source: Statistics Canada, Profile and Labour Market Outcomes of Doctoral Graduates from Ontario Universities; Doctoral Students and University Teaching Staff

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

OCUFA participates in government consultations at Laurentian, Ryerson, and Fanshawe College

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Last week, OCUFA representatives attended roundtable consultations on higher education reform in Ontario. Led by Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities Glen Murray, the consultations are intended to explore questions and recommendations made in the discussion paper, Strengthening Centres of Creativity, Innovation, and Knowledge.
 
The sessions are organized around four themes, each extracted from the discussion paper: Quality Teaching and Learning Outcomes; Expanded Credential Options and Supplements; Technology-Enabled Learning; and Entrepreneurial and Experiential Learning. Each of the three regional sessions (such as Laurentian and Fanshawe College) cover all four themes, while the GTA half-day sessions are focused on a single theme.
 
OCUFA has numerous concerns about the consultation process and the framing of the consultation themes, but will continue to participate actively in the remaining three sessions. In particular, we are worried that the government is not recognizing the significant innovation and productivity that already exists in the university sector— for example, the average faculty member now teaches 22 per cent more students than they did in 2000.
 
The next session will be on August 9, 2012 at the University of Waterloo on technology-enabled learning. 

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

Data Check : PhD grads enjoy high employment, though not always where they want

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Recent Statistics Canada research on the career paths of graduates of Ontario doctoral programs shows that while most are employed, many are not in academic jobs and others are overqualified for their current positions.

Of the Ontario respondents surveyed in 2007, two years after completing their studies, almost two-thirds had aspirations of becoming a university professor. For the other third, more money and better job opportunities appears to be the biggest single reason to pursue other career options.

Two years after graduation, 86 per cent were employed and another four per cent were self-employed. Close to 80 per cent had found full-time employment. Overall, 58 per cent found work in educational services, but there were differences corresponding to field of study – ranging from 34 per cent for engineering doctorates to 83 per cent for humanities doctorates.

The proportion of doctorates over-qualified for their job varied by field of study as well, but those with degrees in engineering or “education and other fields” experienced the highest rates of over-qualification. Earnings were typically higher for those who had found jobs matching their qualifications. The gap in median salaries between over-qualified and qualification-matched engineering grads was $2,000; for education and other doctorates it was $9,000. The biggest gap was in the humanities — $16,000.

Source: Statistics Canada, Profile and Labour Market Outcomes of Doctoral Graduates from Ontario Universities

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

OCUFA participates in first Government of Ontario consultation on university reform

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On July 19, 2012, OCUFA President Constance Adamson and OCUFA staff attended the first of seven government-led consultations on the reform of Ontario’s universities. The session was also attended by representatives of student groups, colleges, and university administrators.
 
The theme of the consultation was “Quality Teaching and Learning Outcomes”. The session began with presentations from a government-selected panel, including Harvey Weingarten, CEO of the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario; Julia Christensen-Hughes, Dean of the College of Management and Economics at the University of Guelph; Eileen De Courcy, from the Humber College Centre for Teaching and Learning; and Valerie Lopes, from the Centre for Academic Excellence at Seneca College.
 
After the presentations, participants were assigned to roundtables to discuss a series of discussion questions. OCUFA provided a critical perspective on the assumptions and ideas contained within the government discussion paper, Strengthening Ontario’s Centres of Creativity, Innovation, and Knowledge, including the harmful proposal that university funding be tied to learning outcomes.
 
We continue to assume that the roundtable discussions are part of a genuine consultation process, as the government has maintained, and the outcome is not already pre-determined.  Although we do have concerns, we will continue to participate in the consultations with the hope that the government will actually listen to the concerns and perspectives of Ontario’s faculty, students, and universities.
 
This past week, we also attended consultations at Fanshawe College, Ryerson, and Laurentian. We will be providing more information on these meetings in next week’s report.

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

Data Check: The disturbing decline in tenure and tenure track positions

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A recent Statistics Canada report reveals a worrying decline in the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty members at Canada’s universities. According to the study:

“The overall proportion of tenured or tenure-track positions for doctorate holders working full-time in Canadian universities decreased by 10 percentage points between 1981 and 2007, decreasing from 79.8% in the 1980/1981 academic year to 70.3% in the 2006/2007 academic year. The decline was even more pronounced for professors under the age of 35. In 1980/1981, one-third of professors under age 35 (35%) held a full-time tenured or tenure-track position; 25 years later, this was true for only 12% of professors in that age category, a decrease of 23 percentage points.”

  The report does not indicate why this decline has occurred, but it there are some compelling explanations that warrant further explanation. In Ontario, new faculty hiring has not kept pace with increased numbers of PhD graduates, or the dramatic increase in overall enrolment over the past decade. As a result, Ontario now has the worst student-to-faculty ratio in Canada, at 27-to-1. It seems that we are failing to hire new PhD graduates, while simultaneously subjecting our undergrads to larger class sizes, fewer course choices, and less interaction with faculty. The solution to both problems is simple: hire more full-time faculty.

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

Government of Ontario announces summer consultation schedule

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In last week’s OCUFA Report, we reported that the Government of Ontario plans to hold consultations over the summer on reform to the province’s higher education sector. There will be four half-day consultations in the GTA on specific topics, and three regional roundtables. Dates for the consultations have now been set:

  • July 19 – Humber College (GTA) – Quality Teaching and Learning Outcomes
  • July 24 – Fanshawe College (London) – Regional West
  • July 25 – Ryerson (GTA) – Experiential Learning
  • July 26 – Laurentian (Sudbury) – Regional North
  • August 9 – University of Waterloo (GTA) – Technology-Enabled Learning
  • August 14 – Algonquin College (Ottawa) – Regional East
  • August 15 – UOIT (GTA) – Expanded Credential Options

OCUFA will be sending representatives to every consultation, to ensure the faculty perspective is prominent in the discussions. We will also be making a written submission on the government’s discussion paper.

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.