The new underclass
By Chris Sorensen and Charlie Gillis - Wednesday, January 16, 2013 - 0 Comments
Why a generation of well-educated, ambitious, smart young Canadians has no future
Chad Hipolito
Melanie Cullins is no pipe dreamer. She chose a vocation that, by unanimous opinion, represented a path to steady employment—teaching English as a second language to the thousands of immigrants pouring into B.C., a good many of whom, the experts predicted, would be making their way to Victoria, where she grew up and wished to make a home. That was back in the early 2000s, when opportunities for the young and industrious appeared unlimited. A rewarding career seemed within reach for all.
Cullins’s degree in applied linguistics was the gold standard of ESL qualifications. But she graduated in the thick of the 2008 financial meltdown, and the entry-level position she imagined would launch her career never materialized. Governments cut back on language transition programs. Resumés piled up in recruitment offices. Her calls to program directors went unanswered. “For me, that was a huge blow,” she says. “I had almost perfect performance reviews from my practicums, but I couldn’t even get an interview. You start to wonder: what’s wrong with me?” Continue…
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The graduate’s million-dollar promise
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 16, 2013 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments
A university degree was once a guarantee of higher incomes. Those days are gone, argue two profs
Andrew Vaughan/CP
The message to young people is simple. If you want an extra million dollars, maybe more, just get a university degree. Your lifetime earnings will be at least that much more than those of someone with only a high school education. Or so says the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC), quoting the 2006 census.
The university establishment does not lack confidence on this matter. In September 2012, Paul Davidson, president of the AUCC, quoted a more impressive statistic: “While it is true that tuition has increased in recent years, so too has the value of a degree. The income premium of a university degree is large and growing. University graduates will on average earn $1.3 million more during their careers than a high school graduate and $1 million more than a college grad.” Continue…
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Future graduates, dropouts and cast-offs
By Scott Feschuk - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 at 12:40 PM - 4 Comments
FESCHUK: A few words of advice from a man who spent six years in school, for a four-year degree
Getty Images; Istock; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute
It’s never made any sense that universities invite prominent people to deliver commencement addresses to graduates. Graduates don’t need advice. They’ve just spent four years acquiring wisdom, knowledge and a prestigious degree. A career at Starbucks is practically theirs for the taking.
The people who need guidance are the nervous high school students preparing to make the leap to a post-secondary institution. I therefore offer this “premencement” address to the class of 2015 . . .
Future graduates and assorted dropouts, cast-offs, washouts and Internet millionaires: you may think I can’t relate to you because I’m over 40. Poppycock and horsefeathers! I daresay you rapscallions and I share the commonality of affixing our knickerbockers one limb tube at a time.
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Cleveland med school goes tuition-free
By Kate Lunau - Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 10:49 AM - 0 Comments
Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine in…
Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine in Ohio is going tuition-free, the first US med school to do so. As of July, all incoming students will be awarded full scholarships to cover the costs of their tuition, estimated at $43,500 (students will still pay for their living expenses, a cost of about $21,800). As for current students, their tuition will be cut by half.
In both Canada and the US, most new doctors are burdened by huge amounts of debt. American med school graduates owe on average $140,000, the WSJ reports; in Canada, by comparison, that number jumps to $158,728. This debt load can actually influence a doctor’s career path, steering them towards the higher-paying specialties. In Canada in 2004-05, for example, family doctors made an average of $202,219 (before overhead costs, which can be as much as 40 per cent). Surgeons, meanwhile, averaged $347,720 a year. No wonder, then, that Canada’s short of family doctors.
Cutting med school tuition, the WSJ explains, is an effort to attract more doctors to areas of medicine where the financial payoff might be lower. What’s more, the move is expected to make the med school more attractive, and more competitive, for incoming students.
How will Cleveland Clinic pay for it? These scholarships will initially be funded with money from the school’s operations and endowment, with the goal of funding them solely from endowment in the long run. The school will require no career commitment or repayment if graduates quit early.
