The Decline of the Liberal Party- Swerved Into a Confederation Topic

[KevinB]

I don't agree with free post secondary education, but I also don't think 21 year old's should be starting out life 6 figures in debt, because they tried to make a good choice.

1) Gap Year working
2) working in the summer.

Part of the fix could be looking at what actually needs to be a university degree IMHO. Medical/Dental, Law and Engineering that should pretty much be it.

Teachers?
Various researchers/Statisticians?

The issue isn’t who should have post secondary education, the issue is young adults need to make choices like real adults.

 

[suffolkowner]

The interest free loan covers apprenticeships as well does it not? Its not just for university?

 

[Remius]

The interest free loan covers apprenticeships as well does it not? Its not just for university?

Yes

 

[Halifax Tar]

1) Gap Year working
2) working in the summer.


Teachers?
Various researchers/Statisticians?

The issue isn’t who should have post secondary education, the issue is young adults need to make choices like real adults.

I am not sure summer jobs can cover the costs of a "higher education" anymore. But I have not don't a cost analysis.

I don't think Teachers need to be trained by universities. They used to be done by provincial teachers colleges. Universities need to reigned in too. They have become a business.

Depending on the sciences behind the research some could be trained through CCs. And I have no idea why statisticians need a university degree.

 

[dapaterson]

A secondary effect is to make military service less attractive. Getting education or training paid by the military is less of a selling point now that the d by will be interest free (although being paid to receive that ed / trg remains a carrot to dangle).

 

[KevinB]

I am not sure summer jobs can cover the costs of a "higher education" anymore. But I have not don't a cost analysis.

I don't think Teachers need to be trained by universities. They used to be done by provincial teachers colleges. Universities need to reigned in too. They have become a business.

Depending on the sciences behind the research some could be trained through CCs. And I have no idea why statisticians need a university degree.

Why does a Lawyer need a degree, just have them solely go to a Law College… Why get a degree prior to Law School?

The entire concept of post secondary education is designed around building a more well rounded individual. There is nothing wrong with that as a general principle, the fact that post secondary education is expensive isn’t by itself an issue either.

Compared to schools down here, Canadian Universities are cheap, so I’m really not seeing the issue with the costs of Canadian Post Secondary education.

When you factor in that most University graduates earn more than non University educated personnel, the initial upfront cost is a small drop in the bucket.


Most Universities run a Fall/Winter Sept-April curriculum, and some also have a Summer .
Ignoring Summer so one can work full time you have May - Aug or 4 months.
Then 8 months during the school year where one can have a part time job. I’m not saying one would be revenue neutral doing that, but one could make a decent dent in the costs by doing that.

That is also assuming that there is no parental assistance.

Frankly I don’t see an issue with people needing to work to gain money to get post secondary education, and yes I do think that private education facilities do need to be run as a business, with the goal of any profits being used to better develop the University/College (but I also think that those facilities should be non-profits, and not allowed to run as a for profit business).

 

[dimsum]

Why does a Lawyer need a degree, just have them solely go to a Law College… Why get a degree prior to Law School?

This is a North American thing - and even then, you only need 3 years of a 4 year degree. You don't need to have a completed degree. Same with the LSAT (by and large).

Law school is undergrad (well, it's "undergrad" here too but I mean straight out of high school) in the UK and Australia for sure, and I think most of the rest of the world. That is one of the big reasons why several Australian universities advertise so heavily to Canadians - they have "Canadian Law" courses at Bond University, for example - and they don't require an LSAT or a degree.

I don't agree with free post secondary education, but I also don't think 21 year old's should be starting out life 6 figures in debt, because they tried to make a good choice.

Isn't the the fed govt talking about not charging interest on the fed student loans, not giving people free post-secondary? Those are two very different things.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Isn't the the fed govt talking about not charging interest on the fed student loans, not giving people free post-secondary? Those are two very different things.

You are correct. I was just stating my position.

 

[Remius]

Why does a Lawyer need a degree, just have them solely go to a Law College… Why get a degree prior to Law School?

Agreed. I mentioned this in another thread about how this current generation got screwed over because a previous generation decided we needed to accredit everything and moved away from OJT style training and learning. Also making some professions requiring masters when undergraduate degrees were acceptable before. Physiotherapy for example. But yes, maybe we can remove a layer of undergraduate study time and energy. But…undergraduate programs are cash cows for universities.

The entire concept of post secondary education is designed around building a more well rounded individual. There is nothing wrong with that as a general principle, the fact that post secondary education is expensive isn’t by itself an issue either.

Compared to schools down here, Canadian Universities are cheap, so I’m really not seeing the issue with the costs of Canadian Post Secondary education.

Canadian universities aren’t cheaper per say, just more subsidized.

When you factor in that most University graduates earn more than non University educated personnel, the initial upfront cost is a small drop in the bucket.

Might depend on the program.

Most Universities run a Fall/Winter Sept-April curriculum, and some also have a Summer .
Ignoring Summer so one can work full time you have May - Aug or 4 months.
Then 8 months during the school year where one can have a part time job. I’m not saying one would be revenue neutral doing that, but one could make a decent dent in the costs by doing that.

That is also assuming that there is no parental assistance.

True. I’m a firm believer that students should be entering the job market even on apart time basis.

Frankly I don’t see an issue with people needing to work to gain money to get post secondary education, and yes I do think that private education facilities do need to be run as a business, with the goal of any profits being used to better develop the University/College (but I also think that those facilities should be non-profits, and not allowed to run as a for profit business).

At the end of the day, I’m not a supporter of free tuition but I don’t see a problem with no interest loans to get students educated.

 

[KevinB]

At the end of the day, I’m not a supporter of free tuition but I don’t see a problem with no interest loans to get students educated.

The money comes from somewhere - in this case it just kicks the can down to the taxpayer, and in the long run isn't beneficial to anyone.

If you didn't have massive government debt and a spiraling deficit, then yes, I would agree that Government no interest loans with the surplus would not be a bad thing.

BUT...

 

[Fishbone Jones]

If they are going to give interest free loans for university, they should also drop the tax on those that don't use the loans. There are forward thinking people out there that actually plan their career, starting in high school and put money aside. Why should they be penalized because they worked and pay cash? Those are the students that actually take engineering, medical, law or others of the like. These people don't protest, take interpretive dance or how Lucy's albino monkey brother started slavery and oppression of the others. They are too busy learning.

If we want to stop our headlong hurdle off the cliff, universities have to stop offering useless liberal art programs for university credits.

My cousin paid for all his post secondary education, as a teacher, by riding a garbage truck all summer in our 90F weather.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Interest is what covers risks (defaults) and opportunity cost (something else profitable or more useful that might be done). Interest-free is a gift.

Not many people in Canada graduate "6 figures" in debt. If they do, they've either made very poor decisions or embarked on a career with a high lifetime earning potential. We don't really need to provide more comfortable young adulthoods for people who are going to end up living in the finer neighbourhoods of Canada's cities.

First thing for governments to do is stop throwing money at people who don't urgently need it. What a help it would be if more Canadians were fiscally/economically literate and could recognize the idiocy of these policies.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Our daughter has done most of her courses online through Thompson River University and now is doing some inperson at Cap U. We started putting money aside before they were born. My plan was to send my youngest to RMC, do a stint in the military and then do whatever she wanted, but diabetes squashed that. When we were doing the parenting courses and told people that was our plan they looked at us if we had two heads. The Professional Associations work hand in hand with the universities here to exclude people who come from aboard from working. Also I see so many jobs that require a degree, but don't pay enough to warrant. A lot of people who write the job specs come from university and they can't fathom any other form of education. Having spent the last 20 years in environmental reviews and permitting, which is dominated by university types, they are very discriminatory to anyone that does not have a degree.
Funny when were reviewing shipping, I suggested the Ships Pilots tell the review panel (100 people) what it takes to become a Ships Pilot. The room was in shock in how much more difficult and time consuming it was over any degree.

 

[Remius]

It isn’t implausible that some people could accrue 5 figure debt levels for schooling in Canada.

That can be crippling enough for some.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Max out your student loans.
Live responsibly and invest whatever is left (make a profit).
Pay back the loans in future, depreciated, dollars (make a profit).

Nice teat if you can latch onto it.

 

[RangerRay]

This might be relevant to this topic in that one of the things indicating the decline in the Liberal Party is the lack of state capacity to deal with even the most mundane things that are out of the ordinary. Andrew Potter posits that lack of state capacity is correlated to how much people trust each other and trust their government in a society.

Andrew Potter: Trust, state capacity, and the meaning of ArriveCAN

The crisis of state capacity can’t be separated from the more general crisis of expertise and of the legitimacy of the state and the rule of law.

theline.substack.com

 

[Navy_Pete]

Depending on the sciences behind the research some could be trained through CCs. And I have no idea why statisticians need a university degree.

Stats is a specialization of higher maths, and also incorporated into a lot of other fields (engineering, business, medicine etc). You also really need to understand the subject to understand what stats are meaningful for whatever you are doing. People get doctorates in stats for a reason.

The mechanics of taking a standard data set and spitting something out is pretty easy; it's the science behind creating a data set, trying to remove bias from data collection, and then manipulating the data to output the data you need is hard. College gets into some of that for some specific applications, but it's a lot more general in university so you can take it and apply it to whatever application you need it for, and sometimes that gets pretty heavy.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Interest is what covers risks (defaults) and opportunity cost (something else profitable or more useful that might be done). Interest-free is a gift.

Not many people in Canada graduate "6 figures" in debt. If they do, they've either made very poor decisions or embarked on a career with a high lifetime earning potential. We don't really need to provide more comfortable young adulthoods for people who are going to end up living in the finer neighbourhoods of Canada's cities.

First thing for governments to do is stop throwing money at people who don't urgently need it. What a help it would be if more Canadians were fiscally/economically literate and could recognize the idiocy of these policies.

Doctors have 8 years of school, with the tuition being pretty crazy for med school, and will routinely hit six figures in debt. Undergrad alone is 40-60k in costs, and that's a lot more than you can earn working full time in the summer. And for people that don't have a hometown school that can't live at home it's even higher.

I'm a big fan of things like forgivable student loans for doctors if they do things like set up family practices for a certain amount of time in communities with shortages though, vice arbitrarily giving everyone free education. I think there are options now for everyone to have the opportunity, but people old enough to go to college/university are old enough to take the consequences of their decision, which should include the costs.

 

[daftandbarmy]

It isn’t implausible that some people could accrue 5 figure debt levels for schooling in Canada.

That can be crippling enough for some.

For thousands....

"I think we have to remember there's a cost to graduating a generation into debt. The costs are just sort of downloaded on the students and their families, many of whom are far less in a position to actually bear that cost than the federal government," she told CTV's Your Morning on Friday.

Shaker pointed to the findings from a 2018 study in Ontario, which found that one of six bankruptcies in the province involved student loans.

"So, if you extrapolate that across the rest of the country, we're talking about 22,000 former students declaring bankruptcy in 2018 alone, at least in part because of student debt," Shaker said.

A 2019 report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer found that in order to eliminate tuition and forgive debt for graduates earning less than $70,000, it would cost $16 billion in the first year, $13 billion in the second year and $10 billion annually after that.

Should Canada forgive student loans?

Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden announced his administration would be forgiving up to US$20,000 in student loans for low- and middle-income borrowers. The move has sparked debate over whether Canada should do the same, but experts are divided over whether cancelling student debt is the best...

www.ctvnews.ca

 

[suffolkowner]

I am not sure summer jobs can cover the costs of a "higher education" anymore. But I have not don't a cost analysis.

I don't think Teachers need to be trained by universities. They used to be done by provincial teachers colleges. Universities need to reigned in too. They have become a business.

Depending on the sciences behind the research some could be trained through CCs. And I have no idea why statisticians need a university degree.

There is a lot of program purging that could be done from universities IMO

Stats is a specialization of higher maths, and also incorporated into a lot of other fields (engineering, business, medicine etc). You also really need to understand the subject to understand what stats are meaningful for whatever you are doing. People get doctorates in stats for a reason.

The mechanics of taking a standard data set and spitting something out is pretty easy; it's the science behind creating a data set, trying to remove bias from data collection, and then manipulating the data to output the data you need is hard. College gets into some of that for some specific applications, but it's a lot more general in university so you can take it and apply it to whatever application you need it for, and sometimes that gets pretty heavy.

We always ran our novel research work through a statistician to develop the proper analysis. Its CYA gives you somone to blame