According to Statistics Canada , Ontario university students pay the highest average domestic tuition in Canada. Undergraduates pay 13 per cent more than their peers in Nova Scotia, the next most expensive province. Even after accounting for student support paid from university operating budgets, Ontario domestic and international students together pay on average 41 per cent more […]
New Statistics Canada data reveals that a university education continues to insulate grads from economic shocks. However, grads are not immune to pressures in the labour market—the number of workers with a university degree grew faster than the number of employed university graduates. An earlier edition of Data Check reported on Canadian and international evidence showing […]
According to a recent analysis by Statistics Canada, the salaries of Canadians who have attained a bachelor degree are more than a third higher than those who did not pursue further education after high school. However, the difference in earnings has narrowed over the past decade. After adjustments for work experience, salary advantage for male university […]
The most recent data indicate that operating funding provided to Ontario universities by the provincial government is in a holding pattern when compared to other provinces. For 2010-11, per student funding was 34 per cent lower than in the rest of Canada, the same gap as 2009-10. Ontario remains dead last in terms of public […]
Australia’s National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) recently released the results of a survey of “casual” academic staff who are appointed on a per-course or research contract basis, equivalent to part-time, sessional, or contract academic staff in Canada. Almost two-thirds of respondents aspire to an academic career, preferably a permanent full-time position with teaching and research responsibilities. Teaching-only positions were the least desirable of the full-time options. […]
It is not cheap to provide a high quality university education online. At first glance, the operating expense per student appears lower at the Télé-Université du Québec (TÉLUQ) and Athabasca University than at traditional universities. Accounting for enrolment profile, the same is true for Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in BC, which has a physical campus […]
Who drives innovation in Canada and Ontario? When it comes to research and development, higher education – fuelled by public dollars – leads the way. According to Statistics Canada, the number of people engaged in research and development (R&D) in Canada rose by almost 67,000 between 2000 and 2009. Ontario accounted for 27,000 of those added positions. During the same period, the […]
One of the many casualties of the recent federal budget is the University and College Academic Staff System (UCASS) . This Statistics Canada survey was an annual census of full-time faculty in Canadian universities, and an invaluable source of information for the postsecondary sector. Due to cuts, the August 2011 data will be the final UCASS release. Without detailed information on faculty […]
The latest Education Indicators in Canada report from Statistics Canada shows that the national unemployment rate for those with university education continues to be lower than the remainder of the working population. Although unemployment caused by the Great Recession peaked in 2009 for most Canadians, the highest level of unemployment amongst the university-educated was in 2010. Other wrinkles […]
As it goes with student-faculty ratios at Ontario universities, so it goes with class sizes. As the number of students relative to the number of faculty increases, class sizes get bigger. This has serious implications for the quality of higher education in our province – larger classes mean less student interaction with faculty, a key […]
Since the mid-1990s, Ontario has had the worst student-to-faculty ratio in Canada. While the number of students per full-time faculty member in other provinces hovered around 20-1, the Ontario ratio rose from 22-1 in the fall of 2000 to 27-1 by 2005-06 as the “double cohort” entered the university system. A slight improvement occurred […]
The 2012 Ontario Budget essentially took a ‘wait and see’ approach on funding for research and development. After abruptly cancelling three rounds of funding under the Ontario Research Fund (ORF) Research Excellence program late last year, there is no immediate prospect of further cuts. But there will be no new funding to keep pace with either inflation or […]
The average annual increase of 1.9 per cent in postsecondary and training announced in the recently tabled provincial budget may bring a sigh of relief in some corners. At first pass, it does seem better than the 1.5 per cent average recommended by the Drummond Commission . A closer look is far more disturbing. The projected 1.9 per cent increase is based on “all-in” expenditures by the Ministry of Training, […]
Writing in the Toronto Star , Michael Mendelsohn of the Caledon Institute for Social Policy observes that the relative size of Ontario’s deficit is not because of spending. In 2009-10, the Ontario government spent the lowest amount of any province per capita – $9,030, seven per cent less than ninth place British Columbia. He cites the Drummond report and points out that 39 per cent […]
By almost any measure, provincial public funding for Ontario universities has lagged behind every other province for nearly two decades. Reckoned in terms of inflation-adjusted per student funding, provincial support bottomed out in 2002-03, rose again for a few years, and has been falling again since 2008-09. Operating expenditures follow a similar pattern. Over […]
