A comment to my bit on Alberta PC Leadership candidate, Lyle Oberg, got me thinking about post-secondary costs in Canada. The comment brought up the standard arguement about the amount of debt that is borne by a graduating student, and this one drives me nuts.
First, post-secondary students in most provinces pay less than 1/3 of the cost of their eductation themselves. The rest is borne by the taxpayers, yet student's unions across the country scream that they need to pay less. They always say that the the government should "invest" in post-secondary education. And here's the hypocritical part...
When the government spends the money, its an "investment". When the student spends the money, it's "crushing debt". Why the difference in terminology?
The simple fact is, a university graduate earns considerably more, both per year and over a career, than a non-graduate. Why then isn't it an "investment" for a student to pay their own way?
Just by way of disclosure, I work in a job that normally requires university education, however, I've earned the job through job experience, not education. Essentially, every university student that I subsidize 2/3 of the cost of, is someone that I am paying to compete with me in the job market.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
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11 comments:
Most of those students screaming for lower tuition (or more free money to pay tuition) are studying in worthless programs like Women's Studies or Conflict Resolution or Sociology. Not only are these programs not preparing them for the job market, but they are so easy that the students have all kinds of time to involve themselves in extraciricular activities like protests and demonstrations over rising tuition rates. Thus, these programs provide the motivation (poor job prospects meaning difficulty repaying student loans)and the means (lots of spare time) to make noise over tuition fees.
If they made student loans easier to get, then I don't think the problem of high tuition exists anymore (ie: personal investment).
Thanks for debunking the starving student myth!
Steven
Kantor On Politics
Firstly, I'm in engineering, thank you very much, raging ranter.
Steve: So as long as it's easy for a 20 year old to rack up $40000 in debt, it's okay?
Aren't the high earners of society with the post sec. education paying more taxes towards programs like welfare and similar that help those with less income? Or pay into your retirement fund? Does society not reap the gains of having higher wage earners paying more taxes?
The way I see it, is if the government is so keen on taking a huge chunk of my future earnings, they could at least pay my way to get there. They'll get more out of me than what I take. That is an excellent investment.
On the other hand, if I were to pay fully for my own education, and see the same tax that comes off me, come off the worker at Micky D's, I would be content to pay for my own bettering. Then it is only a personal investment, and not an investment for the good of society as well.
teresa,
Does that mean that I, having not availed myself of the subsidised post-secondary system, should get a tax break now? My taxes are outrageous, and a chunk of them go to help people gain the skills to compete with me.
Do you mind my asking of what industry you work in? And how many years of experience is required past a degree for your position?
To answer your question, no.
While earning your experience that makes you qualified for a degree required job, you've gotten paid, I assume. So, in essence, you've gotten your education paid for. Moreover, you've gotten a cheque for your education. And depending on which field you are working in, your wages may very well have come from tax/public dollars as well.
I see the comparison between your situation and a student as the student trying to cram 10-15 years (I'm guessing, feel free to correct) of experience into 32 months. Only the student is paying for what you got paid for.
The tax system is what it is for everyone.
Everyone has a choice on whether or not they go to school. I suppose that the question that should be posed to the government is how much it's worth to have people earning high incomes (and paying high taxes) within a few years, or to take 15 years to get to the same taxation bracket by experience?
I believe, I don't have figures though, that the cost of school plus whatever tax I haven't paid for being in school and not earning, is overshadowed by the ten extra years at the higher tax bracket.
Honestly, I've barely been in the workforce for 15 years...total. I've been working in positions that call for degrees for the last 10 years, mainly because I don't need anyone to spoon-feed me information.
I take initiative, read a lot, and take risks at work by expressing my opinions.
Once, about 3 years into work, I had someone with a MSc. ask me where I studied for my masters in his field.
I can talk chemistry with chemists, physics with physicists, torts with lawyers, and stresses with engineers. And you know what, I didn't need the government to pay for 2/3 of that education...
Also by way of rebuttal, I've worked a total of 6 months on "government contract" and quit because I was disgusted with the fact that I was not eligible for any type of promotion simply because I didn't have a degree...regardless of the fact that I had both a deeper and broader knowledgebase than any of my coworkers.
I believe we might be winding down to the 'agree to disagree' part of the conversation here, but I've still got opinions on your last post.
You've got the bragging rights that no one told you what you have to know by when, and you still ended up book-smart. But no professor I've ever had coddled the students into learning. They lay out what you have to know, but its up to the student to get the info into their head by themselves or they're out.
As you've had years more than the students to learn some of the same info, and to take plenty of extra time to wrap your mind around difficult concepts students may only have a few days to understand, I'd hardly say you have the rights to express a comment suggesting students are lazy or 'spoonfed'. Clearly you've never been in the engg lounge at 2 am during midterm season (or, well, homework season for that matter.) :)
As I have a summer job with PWGSC this summer, I understand that what they say is a required for a job is very much non-negotiable. No matter what.
On a side note going back to the beginning, my comment on the post about Dr. Oberg really wasn't so much as 'give me money', but rather suggesting that there was a better use for the money he's campaigning to put into the system. I find suggesting to give the money to those scholarshipping their way through akin to the government telling people "As long as you make over 60 k/y we will pay off your mortgage." It's not those that would appreciate it the most.
teresa,
I love a good arguement, and you've been good enough to engage in one here! Thanks, and I concur on the "agree to disagree part"...
Just to defend myself one little bit, I've never used the term "lazy" with regard to students. I'll cop to "spoon-fed".
To open another can of worms, why is it that so many jobs now require university education. There was a time, not so long ago, that almost any job was available to the unschooled, provided they could show they had the requisite knowlege.
Take for example lawyers. There is a fine tradition of self-educated lawyers reaching the near pinacle of their professions. One prominent example is Justice Robert Jackson, Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court from 1941-1954 and the Chief Prosecutor for the Nuremberg Trials after WWII.
I'm musing here, but perhaps the reason so many jobs require university degrees now is so employers can be reasonably sure of the knowledge base that their potential future employee has. Maybe they don't want to take the time to assess each candidate to see if they actually know their stuff, or if they're just full of BS. By having that peice of paper, its easier to prove that you know what you know.
I imagine it's much easier for companies if they can have someone assess a potential employee's basic knowledge first. A bachelor degree in engineering from an accredited university assumes that you have all the basic knowledge that an engineer needs to have. After that, the employer can look on to how they've applied and expanded on that knowledge with job experience. Without that paper, you may have hit on most of the important topics, but maybe there was something you missed, or didn't understand quite right, that wasn't immediately apparent in the interview.
In the years you gave for your examples, I think that fraud was less prominant than today, and everyone gets sued out the wazoo (that's a technical term :)) if something goes wrong. So confidence in who you're hiring is a bigger/more complicated issue today than in the past.
OK, I can accept that, Teresa.
What I cannot fully understand is some of the pointless requirements.
Part of my job is Project Management. To try and legitmize myself, I've gone through the process to become a certified Project Management Professional.
They have 2 tracks to become a PMP. One is for those with degrees, and those without.
With degrees, you need 3 years and 4,500 hours of PM experience. Without, 5 years and 7,500 hours.
Now, here's why it's senseless...the degree doesn't matter. I could have a B.FA in drama, and I would qualify for the lowered requirement.
And in engineering for example, it's not the actual degree that helps you, it's the P.Eng. The fact that the P.Eng requires the degree is the impediment. Same for lawyers, it's not the LLB, it's the Bar.
Would it not be possible (possible, not feasible) to have a way to assess knowledge? If I can prove that I know the law well enough to pass the bar, does it really matter where I gained that knowledge (maybe I've been sued so many times that I know the process)?
Well sure its possible to assess knowledge. That's what we students like to call a 'test'.
But, if you have 50-200 applicants for a position, how exactly are you going to administer this test without wasting an extreme amount of time if you don't have the space to have them all write in one or two shots? Especially if you're only trying to weed out the ones that don't know anything. I doubt its worth the effort compared to just saying that a degree in whatever is required. And probably someone who has the paper is quite qualified to do the job, no matter if someone they screened out was capable of doing it better.
Also, with the bar exam, you require all the knowledge that you learned during school, so why bother listing all the individual points? If I were in charge of handling that particular exam, and a situation arose where someone wanted to write the exam but didn't have the degree, I would assume that they wouldn't know all they needed to, and would be a waste of everyones time. If they were interested in the subject, why didn't they just go through school to make sure that they didn't miss anything important?
I agree that getting shortcuts for having an unapplicable degree is a little odd, but perhaps there is something being learned in the school system that is close enough to the kind of experience they want you to have, no matter the degree. I don't know.
I find your situation similar (on a smaller scale though) to my last semester of school. I know kids who have been doing surveying work for years over summers and they know their stuff. But they're still required to take the two surveying courses along with everyone else. It's just confirmation that they know what they know.
Becoming a professional and not just a graduate is the same process, they combine your knowledge with experience and they give you some letters behind your name that says that you're a competant person.
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