The Purpose Of Higher Education In Canada

A university education benefits not only the holder, but all of society. Here in Canada, the provinces have steadily reduced their university funding and many have also frozen tuition, effectively stopping the universities from augmenting revenues. This has increasingly put more pressure on the schools financially, resulting in difficulty dealing with the growing number of youth looking to further their education. This is a problem. The goal of higher education is to better society, and its results are proven. University education has been shown to lead to a more productive and innovative society. Increased funding has also been shown to reduce the limits put on researchers, providing them with not only the ability to make revolutionary discoveries, but to further intellectual pursuit for the sake of learning. Purpose of education is to further society, and by using their funding to allow more people to attend university, corporations are ensuring that this happens.

Due to provincial funding freezes and cuts, universities are relying more and more on the financial contribution of their students to fund day-to-day operations, along with long-term plans. This move away from provincial funding is only growing, with the proportion of university operating revenues declining from 84% to 58% between the years of 1979 and 2009, while the average Canadian universities’ tuition based revenues have sky rocketed from 12% to 35% . This is problematic for a number of reasons, including the tuition freezes that have been put in place by several of the Canadian provinces. The average Canadian tuition rose 3.2% this year, but the institutions who have had their tuition frozen are not reaping these benefits . In order to be able to provide all services, and ensure the quality of the education being given to their students, they must receive funding through other means, such as corporate