The grad school squeeze; Not enough undergraduates are pursuing advanced degrees
As DENISE BALKISSOON reports, Canada needs to create far more opportunities for them to do so
The Globe and Mail
By Denise Balkissoon
Canada needs educated workers. The looming labour shortage and impact of baby-boomer retirement is very much on the front burner of public policy.
Yet while our output of bachelor degrees is on an upward climb, that’s often no longer enough to start a career. From physiotherapy to financial planning, many employers now demand at least a master’s degree. Bodies aren’t the problem. The difficulty is infrastructure: Universities just don’t have the money for the faculty, staff, labs and buildings that they need. The situation is already pressing, as the number of graduates and postgraduates coming out of Canada, per capita, is falling far behind our neighbour to the south.
“In 1997, the United States produced 17 PhDs per 100,000 people,” says Paul Davenport, president and vice chancellor at the University of Western Ontario. “If we doubled the amount of PhDs we produce now, we’d reach that number in 2013.” In 2003, as a member of the Council of Ontario Universities, Davenport helped produce a report that criticized a lack of government funding to provide more graduate spaces. People seem to have listened: The Reaching Higher plan, announced by the Ontario Liberal government in 2005, promised a cumulative $6.2 billion investment in graduate programs by 2010; in September, the McGuinty government dedicated an additional $240 million to address the double cohort class.
Western is directing its share toward a critical need for faculty, but Davenport says he still needs actual space — money for physical buildings to house students and staff, not to mention the time to build it. He’d also like both the provincial and federal governments to increase scholarships, grants and other forms of financial aid that flow directly to students.
By the standards of other provinces, the Ontario commitment is enviable.
“I’m jealous,” says Carolyn Watters, dean of the faculty of graduate studies at Dalhousie University. “We need direct scholarships here.” For instance, at Dalhousie only 37% of Master’s of Arts students receive funding, and even then, the average amount is a mere $10,250. Dalhousie’s doctoral students fare moderately better — they are all supported — but the average stipend is only $20,050.
Many academic leaders feel that governments could reconsider their attitude towards doling out financial aid. Immigrants are repeatedly cited as a potential cure for Canada’s labour shortage ills, yet many of our biggest scholarship opportunities are unavailable to non-citizens. Access depends largely on the course of study. The National Sciences and Engineering Research Council does make its scholarship monies available to immigrants, but the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research do not.
“There needs to be a more sophisticated discussion about the role international students play,” says Susan Pfeiffer, vice provost of graduate education and dean of the school of graduate studies at the University of Toronto.
Pfeiffer thinks that interaction between Canadian and foreign students is crucial in today’s global environment. “We need international expertise, so we need to allow international students eligibility for scholarships, while ensuring that Canadians are not disadvantaged.” Dalhousie’s Watters also points out that the higher tuitions that international students pay limit the reach of her grants budget when she’s the one paying their fees. As well, Watters believes that financial support could encourage foreign students to put down roots in small communities.
As people from other nations yearn to get into Canada’s schools, many smart Canadian students are heading elsewhere.
“I want to go to a school that’s internationally renowned,” says Alison Chick, who graduated with a 4.0 GPA from U of T’s engineering program in June 2005.
Wanting to gain real-world experience, she’s been working as a management consultant instead of taking up numerous scholarship offers. Her time in the workforce has led to her decision of what to follow for her master’s degree: Chick has decided to pursue public policy and healthcare, but is only applying outside of the country, to institutions such as the London School of Economics and Harvard.
Davenport sees this graduate brain drain as inevitable as long as Canada’s public universities receive only two-thirds of the funding of their American counterparts.
“We’re so far behind American public universities in the commitment society makes to our students,” he says. “Some bright students will look at that and decide to go to the U.S.”
For Chick’s part, she intends to come back to work here: “I’m a big fan of our culture, public education and public health care.” But there’s always the chance that smart young Canadians will be seduced by the dollars offered down south. Here, a graduate with a bachelor’s degree can expect a salary 38-per-cent higher than someone who only finished high school; the number jumps to 57 per cent for those who earn a Master of Arts. In the U.S., those having a Bachelor of Arts snag 64 per-cent more than high school grads, while those carrying advanced degrees are likely to earn a massive 120 per cent premium.
“Canadians don’t value post-graduate education to the same extent,” says James Milway, CEO of the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity, a non-profit Ontario think-tank that studies economic growth in the province, and the country as a whole.
Milway says that not only do governments have to fund graduate programs, but Canadian employers need to step up with financial rewards for educated workers. Many of the institute’s studies show Canada lags behind the U.S. — first in graduate and postgraduate degrees, then in innovation, research and development. Without a national commitment, these lags are only going to get worse.
“You won’t see the results for your investment for at least five to 10 years,” says Milway, speaking of the need for long term planning and vision. “You have to do it because you know it’s right.”
