Student Debt

[c9]

Which scheme is more workable?

1. Universities charge $4000 per student in tuition, government supplies $10000 per student in funding. (essentially, status quo). Students graduate with an average of $20,000 student debt. Universities forced to cut programs and services to maintain best programs. Adding more students past a certain bar actually reduces the per-student funding from government. (this is also the status quo)

2. Universities let tuition float, completely capitalist, with one year of tuition rising to $10,000 or even $15,000. But almost all of the money is plowed back into bursaries and grants for lower-income students, and the remaining money is used to improve programs and services. This means that the richer students, the ones most able to afford high tuition, pay it, and the least able don't. Could be cynically called another tax.

Paul Wells, a conservative-yet-often-quite-socialist columnist in Maclean's, is blogging on about tuition fees of late. Interesting reading. Tell me (and him too) where his mistakes are. (visit the link and read from the bottom up)

He claims that average student debt for graduates of Harvard is $12,000 CDN. I can't find proof, but have only searched for a few minutes.

Comments

[jdhorner.livejournal.com]

if i ever catch a canadian complaining about the cost of higher education i will shoot them on the spot. dead, right there.

University of Virginia, a PUBLIC school, state funded, charges $25,000/YEAR for regular undergraduate degrees. unless you were lucky like me, and got it for free due to being horribly poor and having a single low-income mother, you're going to graduate with usually tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt. period. there's no way around it.

now, my friends becky and amy, who attended Boston University and University of Pennsylvania respectively, each paid nearly $36,000/YEAR for their undergrad degrees.

it's unbelievable.

and those are USD, btw. ;-)

[whobunkyboo.livejournal.com]

You mean the green ones? How do you manage to figure out which ones to keep for the paying of bills and which to keep for the dollar off at Canadian Tire?

Oh right...no Canadian Tire.

I am currently paying $1000 per three credit course (graduate level)to the University of Alberta. I will have to pay a total of around $12,000 to do my Master's.