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Originally Posted by Drybrain
I don't know if this study was prepared with any political motivations in mind, but it seems to corroborate that. If you look at Figure 2.6, funding per student was cut every single year between 1990 and 1998. Then it wavered for a while, but according to this it did go up dramatically between 2004 and 2011
But, the kicker is Figure 2.8: NS had, as of 2008, the lowest per-capita student funding in Canada. Even taking into account the increase since then, it's below most provinces. Meanwhile we're subsidizing paper mills and ferries to ensure a few hotels in Yarmouth stay open. It very much looks like a situation in which our governments don't know where our strengths lie (hint: universities, not paper mills.)
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It really is amazing, isn't it? That we're funding universities so badly in this province, and yet, somehow that report comes to the conclusion that we need to gut university funding in NS, instead of trying to fund it closer to the Canadian average?
That's what happens when you ask an economist (O'Neill) who, what is more, has no clue about education, to write a report on what to do with it.
Here is a piece that Maclean's Magazine-- not exactly a bastion of liberalism or progressivism these days-- published on point:
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Tim O’Neill’s long-awaited report on Nova Scotia’s university system is out, and rather than offering ways to sustain or enhance one of the province’s social and economic advantages, it reaches for the same old hammer of economists and managers alike: cut, cut, cut.
O’Neill couches his recommendations in conditional phrases and other weasel words, but the pattern quickly becomes clear: never mind the long term consequences, let’s save money where we can right now
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The report was used to by the NDP to help justify their own garbage policies on higher ed, by being a baseline -- "look! We are not gutting as much as what the O'Neill report suggests!"
The NDP's policies on point were the worst of all worlds a combination of neo-liberalism (e.g., cutting spending as the report recommends) and faux populism (e.g., capping tuition notwithstanding cuts in funding).
Thus, the NDP cut spending every.single.year. on universities, starting in their very first budget.
"Province to cut university funding by another 3 per cent"
http://thechronicleherald.ca/novasco...her-3-per-cent
And they were happily thrown out. Good riddings.