Some people do degrees because that subject interests them (as you actually should). That can lead to becoming an expert in a particular field. Again, that may not be of any consideration to you but it might to others.
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Some people do degrees because that subject interests them (as you actually should). That can lead to becoming an expert in a particular field. Again, that may not be of any consideration to you but it might to others.
Engineering is still a 120 credit hour honours degree over four years. I bet the average over the four years for most students was/is still under 40 hours per week, but maybe more than 30, sure. Some disciplines may be harder than others, then there is EngSci vs regular Eng. Do we drop certain engineer degrees based on "40 hours"??? Although I took an uncommon route I have pretty good idea on all that/this...
How easy a degree is will depend a lot on the student so an arbitrary set of outside of class hours is a poor measurement. There are guys I know in STEM that easily cruised through it well under 30 hours per week, some rarely even attended class and killed it, I am sure there are also people in fine arts or whatever that struggle and crank the outside of class hours.
If I tried to get a fine arts degree it would take me WAY over 40 hours per week, lol.
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Just for inclusion, some universities may use other credit systems, for example UofT is 20 credits to graduate... but it is still the same amount of effort give or take just each course per semester is now 0.5 credits, five three hour courses per semester for 2.5 credits per.
Some non-eng degrees can vary more on what to take, BA typically 60 on subject and 60 gen. BSc typically 90 on subject and 30 gen. Just more food for thought.
My daughter is heading to UofT in September so we are familiar with current tuition, just more data. Engineering was in the 12K to 14K range per year for tuition. A regular BSc (or BA) is under 7K per year, I was actually shocked at how inexpesinve it is (as I only ever looked at eng in the past).
I do think there is a lot that can be done to improve the system...
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I remember quite a few years ago seeing a ranking in McLean's magazine of the least employable degrees. At the time psychology topped the list. I would imagine that such a list still exists and could be used to direct government funding.
If the majority of psychology grads are serving coffee (or picking bananas in Australia as a friend of mine did with his masters) then they should be paying for that out of pocket to divert funding towards engineering and healthcare where we are lacking.
If the majority of psychology grads are serving coffee (or picking bananas in Australia as a friend of mine did with his masters) then they should be paying for that out of pocket to divert funding towards engineering and healthcare where we are lacking.
A system I have always thought would be good is something along the lines of this...
Increase the price of every diploma and degree and even them out.
Open up financing more so more people can get a loan for education, even make a portion on loan mandatory.
After graduation (or drop out), depending on how much income tax you pay a portion of the above loan is forgiven per year.
A federal and a provincial part forgiven separately.
Get a degree in Ontario and work in Alberta, you no longer get the provincial part forgiven but still do the federal portion.
Get a degree in Canada and go work in the US on graduation, you pay the entire amount, no forgiveness.
No more out of province tuition, instead you pay more if you don't work in the province you graduate in.
Get a poorly paying job, well your forgiveness will decrease and you pay more to pay it off.
Gov/Schools will need to post how long each degree on average takes to get paid down.
Schools will prioritize well paying in demand as that is what people will want.
People can take whatever they want within reason and capacity but they do it knowing it will cost them more over a longer time.
Education is heavily gov funded beyond tuition. It is an investment in people that if they leave afterwards we don't get back. Degrees and diplomas that pay off poorly will be up front noted. Perfect--no, better--maybe.
Increase the price of every diploma and degree and even them out.
Open up financing more so more people can get a loan for education, even make a portion on loan mandatory.
After graduation (or drop out), depending on how much income tax you pay a portion of the above loan is forgiven per year.
A federal and a provincial part forgiven separately.
Get a degree in Ontario and work in Alberta, you no longer get the provincial part forgiven but still do the federal portion.
Get a degree in Canada and go work in the US on graduation, you pay the entire amount, no forgiveness.
No more out of province tuition, instead you pay more if you don't work in the province you graduate in.
Get a poorly paying job, well your forgiveness will decrease and you pay more to pay it off.
Gov/Schools will need to post how long each degree on average takes to get paid down.
Schools will prioritize well paying in demand as that is what people will want.
People can take whatever they want within reason and capacity but they do it knowing it will cost them more over a longer time.
Education is heavily gov funded beyond tuition. It is an investment in people that if they leave afterwards we don't get back. Degrees and diplomas that pay off poorly will be up front noted. Perfect--no, better--maybe.
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Some undergrad degrees are just a stepping stone to post grad work that does pay off. A bachelors in psychology alone is a good example. Might get you some work as a social worker.
Where work (and licensing) in the field opens up is with the advanced degrees, including some needing all the way to the doctoral level.
That's kind of the point. Some use it most don't. You don't need a master's degree to do social work (as the banana picker eventually ended up doing). I think that we could reduce the amount that tax payers kick in, causing tuition to go up and hopefully match the supply of graduates with the number that our society need. There are already programs to incentivize certain careers (PSW is a recent one for example) but more could be done if you had more capitol by defunding careers that are not needed.
So do you end up defunding German and Spanish departments because there’s not much call for that in Canada? Think very carefully about this as there’s a slippery slope to just having Universities or colleges with med/legal/eng departments. Just a hint, those aren’t universities anymore, the “uni” in the name means something. Then we get to be a country with declining universities, declining STEM. We just churn out money hungry grads, many with no passion for what they are about to do except perhaps the cash. Compare that with world class institutions that do just fine with the ancillary degree subjects.
There’s a very reductive way of thinking here that I used to have. You need to step back and take a look at the much broader picture of the benefit of a generally educated society.
There’s a very reductive way of thinking here that I used to have. You need to step back and take a look at the much broader picture of the benefit of a generally educated society.
And that is our fundamental disagreement. You see every degree as a benefit to society and I see many as a detriment to society as they waste years and tons of money. There are good arguments for both viewpoints and I don't think either can be proven to be correct.
Well, it depends. The best universities in the world have many of the degrees you’re talking about and they consistently top world rankings year after year. That’s a fact. Those institutions benefit society in a number of different ways through prestige. So the alternate model you propose is more of a race to the bottom of that type of list than trying to emulate proven winners.
What I think will happen is they will be greatly reduced, eliminated at some smaller schools. If that a problem, well not much if the world does need those gads in volume. To help out the un-needed/wanted departments maybe the system can encourage unrelated minors somehow (tuition discount). To toss them a bone.
Post secondary education is a privilege, a privilege that a good portion of the population does not have access to due to geography, finances, etc. So I am not a big buyer of the what about the poor <insert program that produces un/under employable grads here> arguments. The system needs to be better than that.
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I 100% agree, but I am sure some will work hard to prove their point correct...
A B.Ed in Ontario is typically a two year second degree (so four for the first B.Whatever and two for the B.Ed). So she is likely (hopefully?) getting a BA, BSc or B?? in English and also a B.Ed. Normal route here is get a bachelors and then do the B.Ed afterwards. It was a one year long second degree in Ontario but under the previous Liberal gov it went to two (reducing the number of grads each year in the process).
In other provinces you can do it as a single standalone honours degree in four years.
A degree (any) has long been a very helpful thing when it comes to work visas, in and out bound.
KLR Junkie
Well-known member
In general, I agree with JC100's position on the importance of open universities where people are free to study as they wish. If we only sponsored academic study into fields that were immediately profitable our society would be much poorer for it. However, during my 6 years in uni (4 yr B.A., 2 yr M.A., both in Environmental Policy Studies), I also witnessed an awful lot of people who really shouldn't have been taking up seats in those lecture halls.
My undergrad program had 220 students in the 1st year, 150 in 2nd, 75 in 3rd and just 24 of us made it all the way through to 4th year. So many people end up in a university program just because they don't really know what they want to study but Mom and Dad say they need to go to university. I took a few years off after high school to figure out what I wanted to do before going back to school at 23 to study what I was passionate about.
On my first day, I was expecting vigorous intellectual debates with earnest professors wearing jackets with elbow patches. What I got was more like a grade 9 science class, with a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds whispering back and forth about where the party was going to be that night.
I have no problem whatsoever with raising university admission requirements significantly and possibly also raising tuition fees. My one reservation on raising fees is that financial aid programs would have to become more accessible as well to make sure that people without a ton of money, like my younger self, can still access quality education.
FWIW, I've spent the last 10 years working in the industrial wastewater treatment field. I design, fabricate and install water treatment systems and conduct environmental regulatory audits. These things have essentially nothing to do with what I studied at university but my time there was still incredibly valuable to my career. I learned how to research, write, collaborate and present technical information to non-technical audiences. Most importantly, I learned how to learn.
My undergrad program had 220 students in the 1st year, 150 in 2nd, 75 in 3rd and just 24 of us made it all the way through to 4th year. So many people end up in a university program just because they don't really know what they want to study but Mom and Dad say they need to go to university. I took a few years off after high school to figure out what I wanted to do before going back to school at 23 to study what I was passionate about.
On my first day, I was expecting vigorous intellectual debates with earnest professors wearing jackets with elbow patches. What I got was more like a grade 9 science class, with a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds whispering back and forth about where the party was going to be that night.
I have no problem whatsoever with raising university admission requirements significantly and possibly also raising tuition fees. My one reservation on raising fees is that financial aid programs would have to become more accessible as well to make sure that people without a ton of money, like my younger self, can still access quality education.
FWIW, I've spent the last 10 years working in the industrial wastewater treatment field. I design, fabricate and install water treatment systems and conduct environmental regulatory audits. These things have essentially nothing to do with what I studied at university but my time there was still incredibly valuable to my career. I learned how to research, write, collaborate and present technical information to non-technical audiences. Most importantly, I learned how to learn.
Stop High School grade inflation and you’d get exactly what you expected. The trades would also be fuller with students who probably should never be considering higher ed and I think the world would be a better place.
Except grades are an artificial bar similar to inflation. If high schools are only handing put grades from 80 to 100, maybe the bar to get admission needs to be 97. I'm not sure what years run standardized testing but holding principals to account if their standardized testing showed a 65% average and their report cards showed a 90% average seems very reasonable. That keeps marks between high schools more comparable.
Grades here have become a joke when I went to high school 70 would get you into most universities and 80 meant you had free pick. Now it seems like 90s the new 60
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Mad Mike
Well-known member
I completely agree that Universities are necessary and that we all benefit from how they prepare people for work, and the unbelievable research they do.
But that's not on point for this debate, we’re on the value of funding basket weaving - by moving the goalposts you’re conceding.
Publicly universities should not be funded to deliver programs and students that rarely deliver the public a return on investment.
