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  #41  
Old Posted Feb 7, 2015, 9:53 PM
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Keith P. Keith P. is offline
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Originally Posted by counterfactual View Post
You think it takes guts to cut university spending? Please. Every government has done it. The NDP government did it for years, stupidly. What takes guts is to cut things Baby Boomers want -- cutting healthcare spending. So if the MacNeil government needs to cut spending and it had "cojones" but also, you know, brains, they'd leave education alone for the younger generation, given the great return it offers on investment, and they'd cut spending on truly costly programs like healthcare.
Apparently universities no longer demand reading comprehension from their graduates. I said "rationalization". That is a very different thing from "cut spending". It may result in that longer-term but certainly will not short-term. But what it DOES do is eliminate the absolutely sickening cost of all that university bureaucracy, all the overpaid presidents and vice-presidents, all the useless competition among them for students. Eventually efficiencies would be found, particularly in facilities - I wonder what the Saint Mary's campus would be worth if placed on the market for development - and, if the govt had any sense, in taking control of curriculum. We certainly do not need any more liberal arts programs in the name of academic freedom. Taxpayers are funding about half the cost of universities in NS now and it is time we stopped just hiving them a check without some say in how it is spent. Every time I set foot on Dal campus I am astounded at the profligate spending.
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  #42  
Old Posted Feb 8, 2015, 10:34 PM
counterfactual counterfactual is offline
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Originally Posted by Drybrain View Post
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.)
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:

Quote:
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
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.

Last edited by counterfactual; Feb 8, 2015 at 10:48 PM.
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  #43  
Old Posted Feb 8, 2015, 10:55 PM
counterfactual counterfactual is offline
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Originally Posted by Keith P. View Post
Apparently universities no longer demand reading comprehension from their graduates. I said "rationalization". That is a very different thing from "cut spending". It may result in that longer-term but certainly will not short-term. But what it DOES do is eliminate the absolutely sickening cost of all that university bureaucracy, all the overpaid presidents and vice-presidents, all the useless competition among them for students. Eventually efficiencies would be found, particularly in facilities - I wonder what the Saint Mary's campus would be worth if placed on the market for development - and, if the govt had any sense, in taking control of curriculum. We certainly do not need any more liberal arts programs in the name of academic freedom. Taxpayers are funding about half the cost of universities in NS now and it is time we stopped just hiving them a check without some say in how it is spent. Every time I set foot on Dal campus I am astounded at the profligate spending.
I'm all for cutting fat in administration, and do think administrators are paid too much in universities. I do think part of the reason administration costs have risen in recent years, is due to the fact as governments have cut spending, it means you need more administrators to try find and administer private dollars -- charitable donations and business partnerships with universities.

I think efficiencies can be found, to be sure, and as I said originally, there probably are too many universities in the province (CBU should probably have stayed as a trade college). And being smarter with spending. But Nova Scotia actually makes its dollars stretch pretty far in PostSec given how badly we fund universities compared to every single other province.
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  #44  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2015, 11:43 PM
Colin May Colin May is offline
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Abolishing paid sabbaticals would be a good start.
And universities should be required to track graduate employment.
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