In Iran, I said, postgraduate studies used to be free, because the exams were very hard and only 10% of highschool graduates could make it to the university. Then non-profit universities popped to attract the lesser-intelligent (slightly tongue in cheek) students. Then the non-profit (i.e expensive universities) started to make so much money that they could afford paying good professors, good training facilities and etc; and accelerated in quality, so much so that in certain cases, students prefered to go to the expensive "Azad" medical school in Tehran versus the free "national" medical school in Sanandaj, for example. So, (speaking capitalistically) over time, these "free" and supposedly nonprofit universities will become the Harvards of a distant future. (This is what the Principal of McGill is hoping to do to McGill, to make it EXPENSIVE so only people who have lots of money, or lots of talent can get into it--her argument a couple of years back was that if you do not have money, you will be too worried about making the ends meet to be able to academically perform well-enough for McGill!)
Apparently, the British are thinking along the same lines, that they want over 50% of their population post-graduately educated, but because that will cost money, they want to introduce tuition fees (and I suppose once the tuition fee is introduced, it wouldn't make sense to charge the same amount of money for Oxford and Cambridge, which are the creme of the crop! So, American system, here we come all!
2 comments:
Ever rising tuition is one of the reasons I never finished college.
I was attending a State University in Wisconsin in the Late '60s and each semester the tuition was going up about 30-50% and it soon became impossible to earn enough money during the summer months to cover the costs.
That's a shame. But it's becoming a global practice it seems. I wish instead of spending money on War we spent it in education.
Quebec has imposed a tuition freeze on universities. But every semester, the universities come up with new "services". Things that no one really cares about or uses.
So, a one term tuition at McGill is ~ $800 CAD (for quebec residents) but we somehow pay ~$1600!
Post a Comment