Magister Mundi Sum

For the last few weeks, my primary occupation in and around Halifax's various watering holes and thinking establishments has been something along the lines of "The go-to-guy on North Korea." I have no qualms with this "occupation," especially given that I spent the better part of last year studying the Korean dilemma, and, aside from a thesis that was read by a handful of people, most of the work I did would otherwise never escape the cavernous hollows that are so beholden to the interior of my skull.

But I am not all about Mr. Kim and his nuclear aspirations. In fact, the one issue that has attracted most of my hollow scholarly attention over the last three or four years is post-secondary education. I've covered it as a journalist, written about it in classes, and, of course, paid for it in tuition. Compared to North Korea, East Asia, nonproliferation, or post-modern discourses, PSE is a fairly simple subject. And thus my head, being the echo-ey place that is, does well when confronted with such simplicity.

Along with my a few of my colleagues, I graduated from Dalhousie University this weekend with a Master of Arts in Political Science. I am proud to receive such an honour. But, to put it bluntly, I ended up doing an MA at Dal by near-coincidence: in the last year of my undergrad, I won an editorship at The Dalhousie Gazette as the student newspaper's lonely copy editor. Faced with the decision between getting paid about $5,000 to be a copy editor at a student newspaper, or taking my chances and possibly making significantly more to be a "real reporter" somewhere else, most of you would probably guess that I chose the latter but simply didn't get anywhere. On the contrary, I specifically chose the former -- more poverty, more student journalism, and more status-quo comfort as an enrolled full-time student (this was a prerequisite for the job) -- dashing my hopes of being a "real" journalist after my BJH.

Why the hell did I do that?

The answer is compound, but to be completely honest, I enjoy copy editing. A lot. And while I enjoy reporting and writing as well, in 2004 I had no desire to jump off to a rural community newspaper and become a media workhorse. I didn't really have the stuff it takes to make it big in print journalism, big like The Globe and Mail or Maclean's, and I didn't want to get stuck on some backdesk beat job, either.

Instead, I convinced the Dal Political Science Department to take me on as an MA student, even though my undergraduate degree was in journalism and my existing marks weren't up to "as good a snuff" as they may have wanted. At the time, I liked political science, but I thought it was a bit of a loony, separated-from-reality discipline.

(A lot of it is, by the way, especially in International Relations).

Two years later, however, I've both kept up with student journalism and become somewhat of a tweed-jacket-wearing "real academic" -- or, at least, I've turned into someone who sees a whole load of opportunity in political science as a discipline. A future PhD is in my cards — but so is writing for a magazine (hmmm... perhaps Foreign Policy?). My journalism background makes me vomit a little anytime I think of working for the man in some cubicle somewhere, so I've almost ruled out a life in the public service. A life as a public intellectual, however, would suit me just fine, provided someone eventually cares about what I say.

(As a matter of record, I am fully prepared to die unknown and hated by all, so long as the incidence of my demise is accidental and quick. On another aside, I am very attracted by the prospect of working on Parliament Hill, or helping out with an election campaign. Unfortunately, with few exceptions, this means I'd have to finally reveal myself as someone who usually votes one way or another... by... well, working FOR a political party. Not yet, I don't think... Non-partisan to the end...)

I digress. As you might imagine, there is a fair amount of overlap between what journalists do and what political scientists study. And no subject has coincided more with my own education than post-secondary education funding in Canada.

Hence the topic, and title, of this post. I am a 'master of the universe' by degree, but that universe that finds itself thinner and poorer in the east and thicker and richer in the west. In other words, Canadian PSE funding is in dire need of reform because it is lopsided all across this country. PSE reform is precisely why I jumped on the Michael Ignatieff bandwagon a while ago -- he said something to the effect of wanting to make PSE funding follow students across provinces, rather than stay in one province, where the funding for PSE is based on total population. And while "saying something" is not much, it's better than saying nothing at all on the matter.

In essence, a per-student PSE funding formula revamp would make Dalhousie University rich, and perhaps make my degree worth more to those that read Maclean's or the Times Higher Education survey. Universities such as UBC, UCal and UofA do well under current funding formulas because they operate in provinces with "profitable" student-per-capita ratios. Universities like my alma mater, The University of King's College, or Dal, do not do so well, mostly because Nova Scotia has far more students per capita than the national average. It's a bit of complicated scenario to explain to kids from Quebec or B.C. who ask "what? What do you mean N.S. universities are unfairly disadvantaged on a whole number of levels? I thought you bluenosers were just poor!"

(It is, but this is hardly the only crux in the problem!)

In any case, the fine folks at The Dalhousie Gazette (my real alma mater, I suppose) let me take up a whole page of theirs so I could throw a bit of my weight around -- in a news-reporting format, of course (I'm shy of 150lbs, so what did you expect?). Thanks to Liberal Party luminary Devin Maxwell for already linking this on his blog. Here she blows:

University consolidation a hard sell

It was once called ‘rationalization.’ Now it’s called ‘consolidation.’ But no matter the dressing, the idea is the same: Nova Scotia's universities should be downsized so that they become more financially viable. It's politically difficult to implement -- but it may make Nova Scotia universities more competitive.

Chris LaRoche
Special to The Gazette

On the surface, Peter Marshall Butler is not a man you’d expect to be an expert on Nova Scotia’s university infrastructure. A quick glance at his recent publications doesn’t reveal as much. But the Dalhousie sociology professor, who specializes in political behaviour and methodology, acted as an adviser to the provincial Department of Education between 1980 and 1991. And, among the issues he dealt with, the prospect of merging Nova Scotia’s universities was a big one.

“My job, primarily, was to be the person on hand in the government who assessed the way in which the universities could be rationalized,” says Butler.

“When I came in, the issue was all about a shortage of money… we had more universities than Nova Scotia could afford.”

The reasoning behind university rationalization, Butler says, is that overlap in the Nova Scotia university system makes the province’s universities less cost effective — and therefore less competitive — than larger systems with fewer universities. Essentially, economies of scale play a large role in determining how effective university departments are. Nova Scotia, endowed with many small universities offering many of the same degrees, is bound to have a lot of overlap.

During Butler’s years, cuts in the federal government’s transfer payments to the provinces turned the N.S. government’s attention to reducing overlap in post-secondary education, culminating in a Royal Commission report tabled in 1986, says Butler. In a province with more students per capita than any other, and therefore with much less money to spend per student, these cuts made a big difference.

“In the 80’s, we certainly weren’t flush with money,” he says. “And there was no doubt that what [the government] wanted to do was deal with questions of amalgamating bits of Nova Scotia post-secondary education.”

Under Butler’s watch, the N.S. government divvied up various university departments between post-secondary institutions across the province, sometimes closing entire universities. This was the case when the Atlantic Institute of Education, which offered education degrees, was broken up, its degree-granting powers distributed to Mount St. Vincent, Saint Mary’s and Dalhousie. This was also the case when the Technical University of Nova Scotia merged with Dalhousie University in 1997, creating DalTech.

And this may be the case again. During a Sept. 21 press conference, N.S. Education Minister Karen Casey said her government might push universities toward further “consolidating” their administrations or programs if enrolment in N.S. post-secondary institutions continues to decline.

Although David Finch, a spokesperson for the Department of Education, later told The Gazette that talk of future consolidation is still “very preliminary,” some ideas he mentioned included collapsing each university’s admissions department into a central office and further re-allocating departments within the university system.

“Maybe every university doesn’t have to have a Bachelor of Arts English program,” says Finch. “It would make more sense for three universities to have full English programs, as opposed to five universities with two-thirds of a program each.”

Provincial universities are already strapped for cash because federal funding for education is based on a per-capita formula — and Nova Scotia, with less than a million residents but 11 small-to-medium-sized universities, has far more students per capita than any other province in Canada.

Politically difficult

But while university consolidation in the province could improve its PSE infrastructure from a financial standpoint, it is “a very, very difficult thing to do,” Butler says, pointing out that a major barrier to university consolidation is university constituencies. Mount St. Vincent University, Université St. Anne and Cape Breton University all act as community centres, Butler says — and attempting to amalgamate portions of these institutions with other universities or close them completely was, and is, politically difficult.

“What do you do about a very small place, Université St. Anne, that is culturally and politically symbolic?” Butler asks. “Nobody has a particular axe to grind [with downsizing] these institutions.”

Small universities do not present the only barrier to consolidation. Butler says one of the areas he explored while acting as an adviser was to “work out an arrangement” between Dalhousie and Saint Mary’s regarding the universities’ business schools. “Boy, was that controversial,” he says, mentioning that both universities now have brand-new management buildings, effectively sparing them from any future program amalgamation.

“As good an idea as [rationalization] was, it’s not an idea that is politically acceptable.”

Dalhousie: bearing the brunt?

The significance of N.S. university downsizing is not lost on Dalhousie, which, although it’s the largest university in the province, could suffer from any government-enforced downsizing because of the breadth of degrees it offers.

Dal spokesperson Charles Crosby acknowledges that discussion of departmental or administrative amalgamations “hasn’t happened yet.” But he says he’s concern that such a discussion would focus only on university downsizing, rather than the benefits universities bring to their communities.

“If we’re going to have that discussion, it should be a broader, more holistic process,” says Crosby.

But with enrolment down for the last two years, and a looming demographic change that will reduce the number of Canadian citizens entering university, PSE downsizing may soon become a reality in Nova Scotia.

Dalhousie Student Union President Ezra Edelstein says Dal’s unique funding scenario makes consolidation a unique challenge. The university houses a larger proportion of high-cost students than other universities in the province, says Edelstein, and this means that downsizing could be both bad and good.

According to Edelstein, Dal offers research-intensive graduate degrees and programs such as engineering, where upper-year students must study at Dal but can do their first two years elsewhere. So, while Dal must pay high costs for lab infrastructure and faculty to support these programs, other universities can specialize in low-cost degrees.

“We’re stuck carrying the burden for the more expensive students,” Edelstein says. “But there’s also a benefit to Dal for having some overlaps in programs, especially the cheaper ones, such as arts degrees, non-lab degree, math, etcetera.

“Program offering contributes to the problem, but it’s also a very positive aspect of how Dal works.”

* * *

The plight of Nova Scotia’s 11 universities is long and complex, but essentially entails a lack of funding from the federal government and a lack of priority from the provincial government. Here’s a step-by-step look at why you pay the second-highest tuition in the country:

First, Ottawa sends Canada Social Transfers (CSTs) to the provinces based on how many residents each province has. These lump sums of cash are aimed at closing the gap between funds raised by the federal and provincial governments and their respective spending responsibilities. (Generally speaking, the federal government has more taxing powers than the provinces, but the provinces are responsible for the implementation of more programs.)

Second, the provinces are responsible for divvying up the CST sums so that they fund the various social programs the provincial governments are responsible for administering. Among these programs are public education and post-secondary education.

Problem #1: Nova Scotia has too many students. While a per-capita CST transfer would make sense if everyone in Canada went to a university in his or her home province, they don’t. In fact, Nova Scotia has many more students per resident than the national average. So while the Nova Scotia government gets a CST transfer proportionate to Nova Scotia’s population, the post-secondary portion of that lump must cover many more students than it should.

Problem #2: The Nova Scotia government does not prioritize PSE in its budget. The provincial government can divide a CST transfer in whatever way it pleases. Even if the Nova Scotia government divided the post-secondary education portion of the CST on par with every other province, this amount would not cover the high number of out-of-province students enrolled in post-secondary institutions. But it doesn’t, and the provincial government has prioritized health care and other social programs much higher than PSE. As a result, a smaller proportion of the CST transfer goes to PSE than in other provinces. To make up the difference, Nova Scotia universities charge more for tuition.

Solution #1: Revamp PSE funding formulas. As a first step, CST transfers from the federal government could be divided so that a portion is specifically marked for PSE. A second step would be to alter the PSE transfers from a per-capita basis to a per-student basis. Nova Scotia would therefore get federal funding for the precise number of students it has, rather than how many students it “should” have according to its population.

Solution #2: Reinvest in PSE. The provincial government, which is ultimately responsible for PSE funding, could reinvest in direct PSE funding, regardless of federal funding formulas.

Solution #3: Cut university costs. The provinces and universities can downsize, lay off staff, hire more part-time professors and reduce waste to improve their existing finances.

You can read the story in its natural environment here, or if you pick up a copy of The Gazette before this coming Thursday (the electronic version of the story is missing an entire box).
再见。