2) Population in K-12 system in some regions, according to 2006 Census, is actually increasing, giving added impetus for creation of U’s in those regions (thus “regional universities”), which happen to mostly be where the U-C’s were located.

Good post though Raul. I don’t personally know if Metro Vancouver needs more Universities but won’t it mean because of the school’s higher status the tuition fees etc will go up too? Aren’t students looking for cheaper tuition fees so people can actually afford to goto school without having to declare bankruptcy after they are done?

Then again I never went to university, I’m all self taught in the way of Geekdom. Though that sucks because I also do not have a piece of paper proving to companies I know what I know. lol

I just wanted to mention, which I’m sure most of you know but hasn’t been stated explicitly here that I can see, is that the lack of students (i.e. declining enrollment) is probably driven mainly by pure demographics. The baby boom echo started in Canada in 1978 or 1979, so that relatively large cohort is starting to age out of the traditional university-going age range. Going by that framework, enrollment at universities Canada wide should continue declining for a good 10 years or so, as the children of the baby bust become the dominant cohort going through late high school and post-secondary. You can see this shift happening in primary schools now–there have been some high-profile fights against school closures which are probably mainly demographically-driven.

So it’s interesting the 2.6% cut across-the-board for university and college funding hasn’t been explained a way as that; it seems like that would be an easy way to spin it. Of course, there’s no need to spin anything if the media is giving you a free ride and the CBC, at least, definitely is in this case: in the piece where they announced Capilano College would be converted into a university against the report’s recommendation, there was not one question mark offered in the entire article with respect to why this cut was happening in a time of BC budget surplus. And as far as I know, there wasn’t even an attempt by the government to explain it as encouragement for the institutions to be more “efficient.” That’s pretty disturbing to me. Scratch that: it’s EXTREMELY disturbing to me, that they don’t feel the need to rationalise their cuts nor does the press feel the need to question the lack of rationale.

The big issues in here, for me, are the redistribution of enrollment amongst institutions and funding of the post-secondary system (which is quite a tangent). In an environment where the number of available students is shrinking, raising the stature of these 5 institutions will hurt the colleges left behind. I can’t see it hurting the major universities to any significant degree. To what extent they colleges are hurt will depend on exactly how constrained the mandates of the new universities are, and my understanding is they’ll be quite constrained.

The post-secondary system is underfunded. It doesn’t help that post-secondary’s getting a 2.6% surprise across-the-board cut effective two days from now that we learned about in mid-March, and I’m not a fan of the seat redistribution either.

Money is transferred from Ottawa to Victoria in one gigantic lump, mixing healthcare and education. Health costs are exploding and the consequences of cuts to healthcare generally involve people being sick or dying needlessly, so that’s where the money goes. On top of this, we’re funded per full-time-equivalent student, without any particular regard to the type of institution — UBC has medical and dental schools and a great deal of federal research money, leading to very high costs for students in some disciplines, and huge amounts of floor space, paperwork, etc., that are required but don’t necessarily scale with FTE students. Ottawa covers some small percentage of these, which I believe is in the neighbourhood of 20%. Except that my recollection is that it’s not really calculated as a percentage of anything, be it actual costs incurred or federal granting council funds awarded — the more research funding you get, the smaller the effective percentage. Operating costs otherwise come out of the provincial grant and tuition, so places like UBC, with huge expanses of expensive floor space and high overhead unrelated to teaching, end up being screwed, and we get large classes, poorly-maintained facilities, and understaffing. Med school is a priority for BC, so that’s funded better than the usual FTE formula would suggest (I think…), but building operating costs tend not to be covered. The Life Sciences Centre costs about $5M/year to run, and Advanced Education thinks it’s a Health responsibility (it’s doing their research and training their doctors), while Health thinks it’s an AvEd facility (teaching and research space at a university). Neither funds it, so it comes out of UBC’s general purpose operating funds.

Separating these issues out from provincial funding would require the federal government to separate education from health in the transfer payment system, and fund the full costs of research. Neither issue seems to be a priority, and explaining why they’re important isn’t easy (nor does it sound overly sexy). If that were done, we’d be in a better position to see to what extent we were being underfunded provincially.

That said, some provincial matters (e.g. a surprise 2.6% across-the-board cut) are not hard to see. It looks to me like either Gordon Campbell has moved on to other themes, or he still cares about post-secondary but there are issues with Advanced Education. I’m personally looking forward to the next cabinet shuffle.

1) And Emily Carr makes five. I don’t know if it’s over. There will be no more than six.

2) This is a change in name, and likely in (academic) governance structure. There is no change in mandate, seats or funding. The justification for the university colleges was that nobody knew what their name meant. A couple other institutions managed to get onto the bandwagon.

3) Whether a PhD will be required to teach at these universities will be a matter for them to decide internally. I wouldn’t expect massive immediate changes based on a rebranding.

4) Undergraduate enrollment is a problem. There’s a dip in population that’s making its way out of high school and into post-secondary (recall recent school closure issues), and a number of BC’s transfer colleges haven’t been able to fill their seats. UBC has been doing OK, but that may not be the case forever. I understand that institutions in many north american jurisdictions have been ramping up recruiting efforts, trying to poach students from each other. UBC hasn’t really done that yet.

True, they could have done that with the schools being colleges/UCs. But apparently (or so it would seem), being a university sort of grants them more status… Not sure, but maybe… it’s an important issue to be discussed, though. I am just trying to raise them

Your third question in your first comment is exactly one of the key ones. Why not simply just add more funding? Is this process of transformation to full universities just a facade for the BC government? What is it exactly that is happening here… Inquiring minds want to know

The only way I can forsee there being more jobs for PhDs would be if more money was provided to the schools to hire more faculty and teach more students… but they could have done that with the schools being colleges/UCs.

Although I agree with you… this begs the question – do all great instructors require to have a PhD? I would agree with you that no, they don’t. But is that the direction in which the BC post-secondary system seems to be pushing them to go? Apparently so.

Although – I also have to respectfully disagree on your respectful disagreement Newly recruited faculty *may* need a PhD but as it stands right now, you don’t necessarily need to have it if you’re already in the faculty roster.

I share the same concern – where is the money going to come from, both for new students’ seats and for research grants!

Great to have you here commenting! =)

-How will these schools differ as universities from what they were as colleges/university colleges? As you state, University Colleges already grant degrees. I always thought of the difference between UCs and unis was that universities are research institutions that also provide an education, whereas colleges & UCs focus primarily (or exclusively) on education. Will these new universities now become research institutes? If so, where will the research grants come from, as we don’t have enough money for research grants as it is.

-I have to respectfully disagree on this providing more jobs for PhDs. You pretty much already have to have a PhD to teach at colleges in the Lower Mainland, so I don’t see new jobs for PhDs just because they are now called universities.

-Why are they changing colleges to universities, but they don’t seem to be putting more money into education?

-If the new universities set up accreditation the way the current ones have, and if there is sufficient funds to provide a good education at these schools, I can see a benefit in students having a more universities. I did my undergrad and Master’s in Ontario and, personally, I found the services for students better there and I think that part of the reason is that schools there have to compete for students. If I don’t like the way I’m treated at the U of Toronto, I will go down the road to York, Ryerson, McMaster, Guelph, Waterloo, Queens, etc., etc., etc. Compare that with here, where if you don’t like how you are treated at UBC, your only local options are SFU & UVic(which is small and may not offer your program). Of course, the new schools will need to provide as good an education and have a good reputation to make the competition real. And that requires the government to invest in education.

OK, I think I’ve ranted enough. And, as I said, I haven’t done any research on any of this, so it’s strictly off the top of my head =)