When reality bites

By Rachel Mendleson - Thursday, April 8, 2010 - 32 Comments

Recessions hit young people hardest—even long after they’re over

Photograph by Andrew Tolson

During his ﬁnal year at the University of Ottawa, Justin Cantin had one goal for his ﬁrst job after graduation: not to wear a uniform. Ideally, he hoped to put his undergraduate degree in history to work in a museum or doing research. But after graduating last December, in the aftermath of the most severe recession in decades, reality hit. With $45,000 in loans, the 23-year-old moved back in with his mom in Mississauga, Ont., and started sending out resumés. He soon broadened his search to include part-time jobs, factory positions—“whatever would give me a paycheque,” he says. Last week, he landed a warehouse gig in Waterloo, Ont. Though relocating for a manual labour job is not something he ever imagined he’d do, he says, “It’s better than nothing.”

As Cantin struggles to adjust his expectations, he can take comfort, however cold, in the knowledge that many of his peers are doing the same. Though it’s been months since Canada’s economy returned to growth, recessions have a way of bearing down hard on youth, even long after they’re officially over. Predominantly employed in industries like retail and food service, which depend on consumer demand, or in unions where seniority rules, youth tend to be first on the chopping block when the economy goes south. This time was no different: since October 2008, more than 190,000 jobs for young people have disappeared; unemployment among 15- to 24-year-olds rose to 16.3 per cent in August 2009, almost double the overall rate.

Although jobs are slowly coming back—as of February, youth unemployment had dropped to 15.2 per cent—what’s on offer is hardly the stuff from which middle-class careers are made. Thanks to the disappearance of manufacturing jobs, hiring freezes and the delayed retirement of workers, for many the reality is a spell of unemployment or a low-paying gig—both of which can have lasting consequences, derailing careers for years to come. While it’s impossible to know how much their future will be shaped by the Great Recession, one thing is clear: the generation raised to believe in the limitlessness of their own potential has just been dealt a very unlucky blow.

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User pay: how lucid

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 4:51 PM - 55 Comments

Lucien Bouchard, whose government maintained a cap on tuitions at Quebec universities, urges Jean Charest, whose government has been increasing tuition fees at a timid rate of $50 per semester, to blow the doors off and let tuition rates rise to the national (that is, Canadian) average. I am hunkering down while the CFS loads its muskets. Many years ago I spent weeks here writing arguments that closely resemble Bouchard’s. The archives of this blog being a bit of a fragile flower, you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Where all that money is going

By W.D. Smith - Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 1:10 PM - 14 Comments

Tuition rises, class size grows, and the bureaucracy gets big

The annual tuition fee debate has begun. This is the war dance that takes place every winter, when senior university administrators announce that students yet again face substantial hikes. Those administrators roll out the rationale they use every year: the increases are necessary to protect educational quality, top faculty costs top dollar, and the only alternatives are declining quality and staff layoffs or increased government funding. Students get angry. They claim that university is becoming a place for only the wealthy, that quality has suffered enough, and that debt loads are becoming unmanageable. Boards of governors—the guardians of public interest when it comes to the operation of universities—wring their hands and voice genuine empathy. They hope for solutions but find none. And then, as they always do, they approve the increases proposed by senior administration.

Here’s the thing: the students have a point—at least according to a detailed analysis of the finances of Canada’s largest 25 universities. A study of 21 years of data compiled annually by StatsCan for the Canadian Association of University Business Officers (CAUBO) reveals some startling trends. In 1987-88, the top 25 universities spent $6 billion across all their activities; by 2007-08, that had increased by almost four times inflation, to $21 billion. That equates to about 13 per cent of Canada’s health care budget, or more than the entire defence budget. And that’s only the top 25 schools.

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Cards to play, chips to use

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 9, 2009 at 10:29 AM - 68 Comments

Reluctant partisan Mike Duffy explains the necessity of his travel on the public dime.

“You look at Holland College in P.E.I., they got $8.5 million this year,” said Duffy. “People say why do you travel? It’s because you need cards to play and chips to use.”

Duffy builds his chips up by traveling to MP’s ridings, meeting people, giving speeches and making friends.

“So I’m going to ask the minister of science Gary Goodyear to look favourably upon Holland College. He has a zillion applications and I say, ‘gee Gary, would you take a personal interest. I think it has merit. Will you look at that and see what you can do,” said Duffy. “So when Holland College comes up they get $8.5 million. They’re going to build some new buildings, take down some substandard housing and rearrange things and do it in a way that will substantially change your impression of Charlottetown.”
Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 11:31 AM - 9 Comments

Keith Martin suggests we send the professors to Africa.

His early ideas had focused on getting doctors to developing nations. But Martin, a physician who has been to Africa 26 times, realized medical help alone wasn’t enough: without essentials like clean water, a local doctor’s good work could be quickly undone. So he hit upon the idea of centres for international health and development in universities that could serve as talent pools for the developing world.

He says campuses have the array of talents so often in demand in Third World countries – medicine, nursing, engineering, veterinary sciences, law, business and education. His pitch isn’t aimed at students. Rather it’s targeted at the professors, perhaps those nearing retirement, who are the experts in their fields, have the skills to work unsupervised and at this point in their life, have the time to spend in a developing nation.
The need to compete

By The Editors - Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 10:20 AM - 5 Comments

We should award our research dollars based on a school’s merit, not its reputation

Should Canada’s university system be more elitist? The country’s ﬁve largest universities think so.

Last month, Maclean’s readers got a ﬁrst look at a controversial proposal from the presidents of the University of British Columbia, the University of Alberta, the University of Toronto, McGill University and Université de Montréal. In an exclusive round-table discussion with senior columnist Paul Wells, they outlined a plan that would see their schools receive favoured government funding to promote their world-class research and graduate student education. The remaining 100-odd schools in Canada would become primarily undergraduate institutions, with commensurately reduced budgets and expectations.

Since our three-part series, furor over this idea has spilled across newspapers and onto online discussion forums. The idea of picking favourites within Canada’s post-secondary school system strikes many as unfair. Continue…
Hey look: Five university presidents, no waiting

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, July 28, 2009 at 6:17 PM - 14 Comments

Our interview with the presidents of the University of British Columbia, the University of Alberta, the University of Toronto, McGill University and the Université de Montréal went up this morning while I was scrambling to meet my deadline for the weekly print edition. The ruminations of Drs. Toope, Samarasekera, Naylor, Munroe-Blum and Vinet have already sparked a lively discussion on the comment board, and now you get to join.
Hey look: We found John Manley

By Paul Wells - Friday, July 24, 2009 at 2:10 PM - 10 Comments

From the latest print edition, my column, featuring the next head of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. He looks oddly familiar. He says interesting things.
Hey look: A university system that could beat the world

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 3:39 PM - 24 Comments

A few of us from Maclean’s sat down recently, via videoconference, with the presidents of Canada’s five largest universities for an in-depth discussion of the challenges and opportunities facing their institutions and the country. This piece, from the current print edition, sets the stage for that conversation. The next issue starts hitting newsstands tomorrow, and it will contain the results of our conversation. When you get Naylor, Toope, Samarasekera, Munroe-Blum and Vinet in one (virtual) place, it’s a rare summit of academic leaders. We think you’ll find the results provocative and exciting.
Shanghai: No surprise

By Paul Wells - Thursday, August 7, 2008 at 3:55 PM - 0 Comments

The 2008 Academic Ranking of World Universities, from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, is out. The “Shanghai rankings,” as they’re called, are watched very closely by university administrators and easily-distracted nationalists around the world, as a prime indicator of countries’ ability to compete in the global knowledge race. (Which isn’t to say the methodology is beyond reproach, only that everyone loves a list.)

How’d Canada do? Quite well. U.S. universities had more than half of the top 100, the UK 11, Germany 6. Four Canadian universities — Toronto, UBC, McGill, McMaster made the top 100, with two more, Alberta and Université de Montréal, in the second tranche from 101-51. Germany and France, with much larger populations, had 6 and 3 universities, respectively, in the top 100.

But with one exception, Canadian universities have been holding steady in the past five years’ rankings, neither advancing nor falling back. That exception is…

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