Quebec Student Protest

[rld]

I never stated that it is the responsibility of government to ensure that "no human potential is wasted. I posted that it is good business sense for a country to educate every one of its citizens to the highest level possible, based of course on merit. Canada is losing out in the knowledge based world to countries that provides free education.

You are predictably against free education, because it will provide equal opportunities for everyone to reach his or her potential, something the conservative privileged class will fight against tooth and nail.

Actually you did say the underlying reason for free education was that no human potential would be wasted. That is why I bolded it in my quote.

Are you now running away from that justification? Or are you saying that "no waste of human potential" is only good as a policy justification in education and not in other areas?

I am against free education because I believe that people often waste and take for granted things that are flat out handed to them. Whether everybody in the country got a free education would not impact my lifestyle, accept through increased taxes. My success and its maintainence are not based on the cost of education. You are just rolling out a dead canard and some far left catch phrases. An educated work force is good for employers and it is one of the reasons that some large auto companies build their plants in Ontario instead of Michigan. It seems your world view is trapped almost 100 years behind.

 

[fuji]

Are you now running away from that justification? Or are you saying that "no waste of human potential" is only good as a policy justification in education and not in other areas?

You added the word "ensure" and made the claim that it was some sweeping responsibility. He simply pointed out that the particular policy of free education had that as a benefit. There's a big difference between saying "policy A is better than policy B, because it doesn't include waste" and making some ridiculous claim that the government has a sweeping responsibility to "ensure" there is no waste.

There is indeed a strong case to be made for free education, providing that you can close a couple of loopholes. The main loophole would be people who get the free education, and then exit to some foreign country. If the better educated kid sticks around in Canada then the lifetime of higher earnings will generate higher taxes and the taxpayer will be repaid in spades over time. It's an excellent investment in the human capital of the country, and it pays tax dividends in the long term.

However if that kid skips out to work in the US or elsewhere then we lost the money invested.

Perhaps we should have a system where you generate a "tab" as you work your way through school. The full cost of your education is calculated, and you accrue it as a debt, that is payable on graduation. However, for those who stick around in Canada, we progressively forgive the debt, say, at a rate of 5% a year for every subsequent year. No payment required, nor would we need to see employment earnings--we can allow that someone might use their education to contribute in other, less measurable ways. So long as they're still in Canada, we're still reaping the benefits, if any, of our investment.

If you were to then skip out and leave for another country, you would have to begin making those 5% payments yourself. So if after 10 years of working in Canada, you exited for the US, you'd have about half your debt left to pay off.

Of course we do not want to provide free education to EVERYONE. We want to provide it only to those who excel. I'm not convinced that 50% of the population need to go to University, there's a strong argument for limiting the number of spaces and diverting a lot of other people into colleges, technical programs, trades and the like. But for those spaces we do offer, they should be awarded based on academic merit, not financial ability.

 

[danmand]

Actually you did say the underlying reason for free education was that no human potential would be wasted. That is why I bolded it in my quote.

Are you now running away from that justification? Or are you saying that "no waste of human potential" is only good as a policy justification in education and not in other areas?

I am against free education because I believe that people often waste and take for granted things that are flat out handed to them. Whether everybody in the country got a free education would not impact my lifestyle, accept through increased taxes. My success and its maintainence are not based on the cost of education. You are just rolling out a dead canard and some far left catch phrases. An educated work force is good for employers and it is one of the reasons that some large auto companies build their plants in Ontario instead of Michigan. It seems your world view is trapped almost 100 years behind.

I clearly stated that it is good business sense for a government to make sure that no human potential is wasted. The emphasis is on business sense. The most valuable ressourse a country has is its people. In enlightened countries free education ensures a more equal access to education, and a better chance that all citizens become productive at a high level.

Canada is losing out in the world competition in this respect. To use car manufacturing as an example of knowledge based industries is pathetic, to say the least. What about windgenerators, computers, solar cells, computer software, etc. etc. Canda is not well represented in the knowledge based industries.

In the short term, it is beneficial for you and I and our children, who are getting an education at the highest level, without competition from the less fortunate in society. However, the priviledged class is losing out in the long run by maintaining a near monopoly on higher education in Canada

 

[onthebottom]

I clearly stated that it is good business sense for a government to make sure that no human potential is wasted. The emphasis is on business sense. The most valuable ressourse a country has is its people. In enlightened countries free education ensures a more equal access to education, and a better chance that all citizens become productive at a high level.

Canada is losing out in the world competition in this respect. To use car manufacturing as an example of knowledge based industries is pathetic, to say the least. What about windgenerators, computers, solar cells, computer software, etc. etc. Canda is not well represented in the knowledge based industries.

The priviledged class is losing out in the long run by maintaining a near monopoly on higher education in Canada.

Oddly enough if you look to where the most innovation happens it is where education costs the most (not least) and where the best Universities are - in the US.

OTB

 

[rld]

I clearly stated that it is good business sense for a government to make sure that no human potential is wasted. The emphasis is on business sense. The most valuable ressourse a country has is its people. In enlightened countries free education ensures a more equal access to education, and a better chance that all citizens become productive at a high level.

Canada is losing out in the world competition in this respect. To use car manufacturing as an example of knowledge based industries is pathetic, to say the least. What about windgenerators, computers, solar cells, computer software, etc. etc. Canda is not well represented in the knowledge based industries.

In the short term, it is beneficial for you and I and our children, who are getting an education at the highest level, without competition from the less fortunate in society. However, the priviledged class is losing out in the long run by maintaining a near monopoly on higher education in Canada

A government is not a business. Your ideas are getting more bizarre by the minute. Are you now suggesting that the government of a nation should function like a business where we think each citizen is an employee? That makes even less sense than your last argument. It is not the function of government to either ensure everyone reaches their potential or to treat every citizen like an employee or an economic unit. Under the business model things sure would be a whole lot different.

You completely (not surprisingly) missed my point about the auto industry. Employers and those with privilege like educated work forces, especially where it does not drive their taxes up. So your argument about privileged folks trying to keep others down through the price of education does not hold water in the real world. It is just you trotting out some cheap slogans left over from Marx. And all those free educations are not going to change cultural norms and turn all our university students into engineers, scientists and innovators.

I did not come from a privileged family by a long shot, and I, and many of my economic peers got a mighty fine education. I don't know who you think this privileged class is but they don't come close to having a near monopoly on higher education in Canada.

Success in education, for a nation or an individual, is not simply dictated by the cost of education.

 

[fuji]

Oddly enough if you look to where the most innovation happens it is where education costs the most (not least) and where the best Universities are - in the US.

OTB

The US plainly has top notch universities, but it is no longer generating the same level of talent to feed them as it used to. There's a sort of educational tourism going on. In the past, the educational tourists also tended to stay in the US, but an increasing number of them opt for careers elsewhere. Also, the investment in educational infrastructure is a trailing indicator of economic performance--the current excellence of US universities largely represents the position the US held in the world 30 or 40 years ago. Whether the best universities will still be in the US in another 30-40 years is an open question. Plainly some of them will, but it seems to me there will be a shift towards Asia in that timeframe.

 

[onthebottom]

The US plainly has top notch universities, but it is no longer generating the same level of talent to feed them as it used to. There's a sort of educational tourism going on. In the past, the educational tourists also tended to stay in the US, but an increasing number of them opt for careers elsewhere. Also, the investment in educational infrastructure is a trailing indicator of economic performance--the current excellence of US universities largely represents the position the US held in the world 30 or 40 years ago. Whether the best universities will still be in the US in another 30-40 years is an open question. Plainly some of them will, but it seems to me there will be a shift towards Asia in that timeframe.

It would be shocking if some of that focus didn't move to Asia... but for now it's the US, both for world class education and world class innovation... which calls into question the conclusion that free university education correlates to results..... perhaps you get what you pay for or when you make an investment in yourself (even if it's heavily subsidized) you make sure you invest wisely.....

OTB

 

[someone]

Just about all the studies I’ve seen conclude that the same people go to university regardless of the funding system. E.g. the demographic backgrounds of European university students is almost identical to Canadian students. Thus, there is not much support for the wasted potential argument.

 

[danmand]

Just about all the studies I’ve seen conclude that the same people go to university regardless of the funding system. E.g. the demographic backgrounds of European university students is almost identical to Canadian students. Thus, there is not much support for the wasted potential argument.

Are you claiming that studies show that absence of tuition does not promote more equal access to education?

PS: Of course, the free tuition has to be maintained for decades, as cultural harriers has to change.

 

[Rockslinger]

Education might be overrated. Smart people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. didn't even graduate from university. The U.S. and Euro banks are a mess because they hired too many MBA's. Back in the old days, bankers learned their craft from the ground up. Of course, engineers and doctors do need to graduate from university but I think our universities graduate more lawyers and political scientists than people who actually build things like engineers.

 

[rld]

Are you claiming that studies show that absence of tuition does not promote more equal access to education?

PS: Of course, the free tuition has to be maintained for decades, as cultural harriers has to change.

Cultural barriers won't change just by making education free. Those are economic barriers.

It seems your idea is failing the real world test.

 

[someone]

Are you claiming that studies show that absence of tuition does not promote more equal access to education?

PS: Of course, the free tuition has to be maintained for decades, as cultural harriers has to change.

Basically yes, although the role of tuition is not zero, it is small. See for example:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...nt-increase-university-access/article2322202/
http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2007/10/how-increasing-.html
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/3551258
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=914025
I don’t have the additional references right now, other studies have also compared university participation across countries and basically find that basically the same students go to university in different countries, regardless of funding systems.

 

[onthebottom]

Cultural barriers won't change just by making education free. Those are economic barriers.

It seems your idea is failing the real world test.

You can look at K-12 performance to see that.... and that's free.

OTB

 

[doggystyle99]

I was in Montreal on Wednesday and Thursday in a hotel in Old Montreal and there was a demonstration there. A poll indicates this is only supported by less than 10% of students in the province with the exception of the University of Montreal where it is higher. The Liberal Government of Charest has little wiggle room on this subject as they can't really be seen to capitulate at this late date. BTW all 3 parties provincially supported this increase when it was first introduced.

The general population seems to have little sympathy for the students.

Tens of thousands of people protesting represents a lot more than 10%.
Sound like a bogus poll that might of been reported by the media to discredit the students and the actual numbers.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/montreal-gears-100th-day-student-protests-163457747.html

 

[basketcase]

Out of those 'tens of thousands', how many are current students and how many are just protesters?

To quote the article,

"You can see that there is not only just students, but a big part of the general population that is here today.

...

CLASSE spearheaded the event's organization, aided by Quebec's largest labour federations.

I'm sure most students don't want to pay more but how many actually think this increase is significant enough to throw away a year of their education?

 

[james t kirk]

Part of me would actually love to see the policies of CLASSE enacted.

Charest could say to the populace, "ok, we're going to increase your taxes by X in order to pay for all the free goodies for the students"

We are going to cease all construction on Quebec University campuses and roll back Research and Development just like CLASSE wants.

It would be great for Ontario because any prof worth his salt would be driving down the road to Toronto for a job. Just like Levesque destroyed Montreal with his discriminatory policies which only bennefited Toronto.

Quebec has a hard enough time already attracting any leading scholars now due to its discriminatory language policies.

 

[danmand]

Basically yes, although the role of tuition is not zero, it is small. See for example:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...nt-increase-university-access/article2322202/
http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2007/10/how-increasing-.html
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/3551258
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=914025
I don’t have the additional references right now, other studies have also compared university participation across countries and basically find that basically the same students go to university in different countries, regardless of funding systems.

However, countries with the highest social mobility have free education.

I can believe that the size of the tuition makes little difference. The experience from Denmark is that you have to make tuition completely free, and in addition provide grants for living expenses, if you want equal access to higher education.

 

[wigglee]

However, countries with the highest social mobility have free education.

I can believe that the size of the tuition makes little difference. The experience from Denmark is that you have to make tuition completely free, and in addition provide grants for living expenses, if you want equal access to higher education.

that will simply create an expensive class of professional students who will never get a real job, just hang out at the universities on public money and take course after course after course. Sounds kinda fun, eh? Unless you are a taxpayer.

 

[danmand]

that will simply create an expensive class of professional students who will never get a real job, just hang out at the universities on public money and take course after course after course. Sounds kinda fun, eh? Unless you are a taxpayer.

It did not in Denmark.

 

[fuji]

Just about all the studies I've seen conclude that the same people go to university regardless of the funding system. E.g. the demographic backgrounds of European university students is almost identical to Canadian students. Thus, there is not much support for the wasted potential argument.

There are several ways to interpret that, many of which include wasted potential. Unless you want to argue that the rich have a genetic advantage over the poor, you would start looking into what advantages stupid rich kids over smart poor ones, academically, and try to correct that as well.

My guess is that there are many factors each contributing a little.