Canada Election Issue - Education

[maplesyrup]

Education should be free to those that want it, and should be paid for out of taxes.

It is tragic, particularly for all these young students, that are being saddled with those massive student loans, in order to get an education in Canada.

Why doesn't Prime Minister Paul Martin cancel that masssive corporate tax cut, and help our Canadian students instead?

[Slavik44]

Education should be free to those that want it, and should be paid for out of taxes.

It is tragic, particularly for all these young students, that are being saddled with those massive student loans, in order to get an education in Canada.

Why doesn't Prime Minister Paul Martin cancel that masssive corporate tax cut, and help our Canadian students instead?

seeing as how I am looking towards going to uni next year it would definentley be nice but i don't see it happening...plus i don't see where the money would come from...as thsi woudl bring aobut a much higher enrollment and I don't belive there would be any where near enough seats to supply the increased enrollment, especially in B.C...if paul chretien really wants to end western alienation he should start by helping B.C get enough university seats per capita as all the other Canadian provinces

[Communist_boy]

The idea is a good one, however a very difficult one. As slavik pointed out the money is one problem. If you remove the taxe cuts to the corporations as was originaly suggested then you have the problem of them leaving Canada and goin to another area where there are no taxes. Also involved in that CSL would have to pay up.

Another issue is the fact that education is under the control of the provinces. If the federal government tried anything the provinces would get upset, even if they are puting in money. The feds have given provinces money before, and the provinces wanna spend it on their own budjet, and at times have rejected money because they couldnt spend it.

The number of university seats needs to be raised all across the nation, not just in one province. Education needs more funding everywhere. Spending 4 years in Alberta, 6 in Ontario, and 4 hear in NB has taught me that, although ALB has the best, it comes at a great cost to the people, in High School you pay for your courses. That has been their solution to spending. Ontario pretty much stopped the funding under Mike Harris. Another lovelly solution, Nova Scotia refuses to raise wages, another effective idea (cause all teachers to strike and support workers to strike, ie... no bill).

The Canadian government must work with the provinces and work out where the money can be best spent, Im thinking major loan coming shortly in order to fix some serious problems.

[Morgan]

maplesyrup said:

Education should be free to those that want it, and should be paid for out of taxes.

Since when is university education an "entitlement?" Get serious.

Of course, everyone would want to be a student indefinitely, but that's not the way life is. There are some things in life that you need to work for, maplesyrup, and not always expect "someone else" to pick up the tab.

Also, not every person is suited for college. Some people are better suited to trade school. How many sociology/anthropology graduates does society need?

[Lost in Manitoba]

How about a discount based upon your GPA? Tell you what, if a person is going into medical school with a 4.0 they are showing either a) they are smart enough or willing to to put in a lot of work to succeed. If you want to go to medical school but cannot achieve the high grades to achieve the gov't funding, get a student loan. We reward our talented and gifted athletes for posessing physical excellence, why not the students who have academic excellence?

A city itself can help out a student and itself too. Lack of plumbers in the city? Offer loans to people going to college for plumbing/pipefitting. Nurses, ditto. Creative ways to entice the grads to stay and work for the city afterwards. Pay back the student loan at normal rates or have it taken off the paycheck of your city job (interest free, of course). This may sound like indentured labour, a bit, but you'ld never have gotten there without the loan, and you can always opt out and pay back under normal means.

It was '93 when I got my first and only student loan, so I'm not too familiar with how it works now. I was wondering if a possible way to help keep local talent was to forgive the provincial part of the loan if the graduate stayed and worked in province for a set time. ie, instead of graduating nurses taking off from Winnipeg to go work in Alberta, where they are payed close to double, give them an incentive to stay. Namely, debt forgiveness. Going through the BN program here, one might get something like $30 in student loans, maybe half of which would be provincial student loan. I've heard people usually pay twice what they borrowed, so chalk that provincial loan up to $30k itself. Now if you could get out of paying that loan by staying in province for (6yrs) would that not be worth it? Some would want to go to Alberta or the US anyway, because the salary is so high, but what of the people who may want to stay but need to move because of the money situation. This may give them the opportunity to stay in their home province.

Take this even further: To prevent, or maybe reduce, the 'brain drain' to the US. Do this with the Canada student loan as well. Stay in Canada for x# of years and the debt is forgiven. Like I said before, this will not counter cases where ridiculously huge salaries are being offered down south, but it may give the person a bit of an incentive to stay.

[RB]

it is immoral for someone else to pick up the tap on your university education. from an economics view point the private benefits to the individual far exceeds the social benefits.

firstly, there is no guarantee that you will get a better job, higher wages with you higher education (HE) hence no correlation between HE, jobs and paying more taxes

here is what i believe in - compensation benefits when some cost is imposed. means if the good kindly doctor that has been operating for years in one location one day finds a big company, big businessmen with big business intention moves in next door and proceed with their daily annoying hammering. compensation in principle should be awarded...to who? well ... sometimes is difficult to determine: to the patients, the doctor, and who knows maybe benefits to the smart company because this company can argue that it will provide benefits to a wider mass of people, contribute more to the economy than the good doctor.

in your HE argument the compromise is that in the end society benefits because you are all going to gather special skills and knowledge to do very well to become politicians, doctors, lawyers and you are going to provide a some real value to society as a whole.

hence governments should not be precluded from facing up to responsible, take the burden of cost to mostly capitalise on the gains of social benefits.

parallel to your arguments of free university education i would also submit that my neighbors say if i park my BMW’s in the driveway for show it will increase the value of all our surrounding properties. now the question i would like to ask is should i forced someone to give me my rightful benefits as i am doing a good to the city and society non, and now i would like to find out when i can collect on those benefits.

students are the main benefits to HE and the private benefits > social benefit

i question also if say 1/3 of students decided to go for HE why should the 2/3 pay for this

governments need JOB CREATION programs to solve job and social economic problems not higher education

but i can also agree limited subsidised education (such as grants) when the private benefits=social benefits

my one time experience with the loan programs served me excellent in 1998, only because i capitalise on "forgiveness" and took 72 credits that year. i think racked up about 23K that one year in loans but the consolidated pay back was what counted .

if your GPA is good - apply for scholarships

[maplesyrup]

'SFU plans stiff fee hike

Budget shortfall means students face increase of at least 20 per cent'

by Wendy McLellan

The Province; with a file from Lena Sin

http://www.canada.com/national/story.asp?i...6A-5FEC857EAF19

'Simon Fraser University students are facing tuition-fee hikes of 20 to 35 per cent for the coming school year as the university grapples with a $15-million budget shortfall.

A tuition increase of 20 per cent would put SFU above the national average for university fees. A 35-per-cent hike would make the university's fees among the highest in the country, second only to Nova Scotia institutions.'

Another result of all these tax cuts.