Comments on: Where all that money is going

By: neohaligonian

neohaligonian — Wed, 04 May 2011 19:25:23 +0000

Did you even read the article, James? The money isn't going to the profs; it's going to the administrators.

By: top SAP Consultant

top SAP Consultant — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:00:42 +0000

Wow. This is really an amazing article. I couldn't agree more with you guys. Well done.

By: Margaret

Margaret — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:27:24 +0000

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By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:10:59 +0000

This is certainly no surprise to many of us working or studying at universities, although I'm definitely glad to see it discussed in Macleans. From my own experience, I've seen my university administrators receive regular yearly salary increases in the range of 10% (in one year the increase alone for the President was 40,000+ – equivalent to another teaching staff position at the university) while staff have to fight tooth and nail for a cost of living increase. At the same time class sizes have skyrocketed. Graduate seminars which would have 10 students in the 1990s now have 40 students. My 3rd year special topics in poli sci has a 130 when a decade ago it would have been no more than 30. An increasing number of faculty are contract and have to reapply for work every 4 to 8 months (and teach more courses than they can reasonably handle). Students deal with enormous class sizes and profs who are overworked. TAs and sessionals are being asked for reference letters for grad school as students have in some cases never had a tenured prof during their degree (at least not in a seminar setting). The quality of education has tanked.

By: Iain Murray

Iain Murray — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:11:22 +0000

Hello "WD". If it's easy for you, can you tell me where I might find the StatsCan report that you cite? Is it in the public domain? Thanks. iain Murray, Assoc Prof, U of Guelph.

By: TedTylerEzro

TedTylerEzro — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:21:33 +0000

Looks like the students should be hiring the instructors and administrating the University. Universities have operated under that organization before.

By: cynicroute

cynicroute — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:23:01 +0000

Hold on a minute… this has only now come to peoples' attention? I've been saying this since I first applied to the U of A in 1998. Academia has not been about learning for quite some time now. Have a look around the U of A campus at the various empty shells of buildings unoccupied and unfinished, then ask again where tuition dollars are spent. Does our illustrious President really earn her $600K (+ travel of course)? It's enough to get an invite to the 2009 Bilderbeg meeting.

Universities are for learning. Laboratories are for research. Quality of learning is far important to most students than is the prestige of the institution. @DMB: you obviously have not been a post-decondary student for some time now.

By: David Bell

David Bell — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:55:22 +0000

Does anyone have the contact co-ordinates for W.D. Smith?

By: James Halifax

James Halifax — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:50:09 +0000

Given that Universities today are little more than extensions of various left-wing ideology, one wonders if the profs are worth the money they are being paid. Frankly, once the profs are safely ensconced in the Ivory halls….it's almost impossible to get rid of them, no matter how incompetent and over-paid they are.

By: W.D. Smith

W.D. Smith — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 17:18:29 +0000

I'm not sure about your enrollment number, DMB. According to the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (“the voice of Canada's universities”, so they should know), full-time enrolment grew by 56 percent between 1987 and 2006.

But the article is not about the income growth because a decent chunk of it was specifically granted for sponsored research. Nor is it about government funding levels, although I agree with your point about that.

The article is about the efficiency of our universities and about their commitment to undergraduate education.

Much of the increased operating money (which includes vastly-increased tuition fee income) has never made it to the classroom. A shockingly large proportion has been lost to major increases in central administration costs, among other things. Even worse, most schools have opted to spend less on seasoned faculty and more on TAs and sessionals. And just ask the students about class size.

That's certainly not an increase in value for money – for students, governments, taxpayers or anyone else.

By: DMB

DMB — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:06:33 +0000

In 1987/88, the number of university students in Canada was around 500,000. By 2007/08 that had increased to over 1 million. (Numbers from Statistics Canada.) This alone accounts for almost the entire increase in university spending from $6 billion per year to $21 billion per year. (Inflation over that period was a factor of 1.65: $6 billion x 2 x 1.65 = $20 billion.) The main reason that university tuition fees are increasing faster than inflation is that government spending on universities has not kept pace with the increase in university participation. Canadian education remains very good value for money, both for the student and the Canadian taxpayer.

By: Enough already

Enough already — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:51:45 +0000

Prestige – forged from high-profile research chairs and headline-grabbing announcement – is the gasoline in the engine of universities. Undergraduate students' tuition subsidizes the ambitions of their school's administrators. When that ambition is unbridled like, say, Indira's at the UofA, and things go awry, it's once again undergraduate students who pick up the tab.

That said, I wonder how different the metrics look at student-centered institutions, like BC's university-colleges, AB's new universities or the undergraduate uni's in the Martimes?

By: Landon

Landon — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:46:57 +0000

Incredibly insightful article. Thank you for this illuminating research.

By: YSP

YSP — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:56:09 +0000

Have Canada’s top universities become preoccupied with status rather than excellence?

Hmmm . . . Could the Macleans university rankings have anything to do with this?