Brad C

Another random aside from the world of academia; A somewhat common criticism I read is politely “universities are dying because they can't respond to the needs of the labour market” and more directly “universities don't create programs fast enough.” I think that criticism is valid, but poorly considered. It is poorly considered because it places too much emphasis on the launching side and doesn't think about the other side, the shutting down side. The assumption is “Well if the program isn't a success (whatever that means) then you just shut it down.”

For a moment lets ignore development time.

You launch a four year program, and through a miracle every student that will graduate does so in four years.

Cohort 1 is admitted in Y1. Cohort 2 is admitted in Y2. Cohort 3 in Y3 . . .

After 4 years you realize the program is bunk, so you shut down. But the students you admitted need to be given a chance to finish.

In Y4 Cohort 4 starts, which means that you still need to “offer the program” (i.e. all the classes) until Y8, so that those students have a chance to finish the program. So launching a 4 year program is at minimum an 8 year commitment under the most ideal, unrealistic circumstances. The reality is that almost every institution in north america talks in terms of 6 year grad rates, with the majority of students finishing bachelors programs in 5ish years. If we take that example again, in Y4 Cohort 4 starts, and if you give them a normal amount of time to finish you are “offering the program” until Y10.

Let's relax assumptions and get a bit closer to reality again. Almost all graduates will graduate within 6 years, but that isn't equivalent to all. Life happens, so a tiny handful of students have delays and will graduate a year or two later. If you add a buffer, 2 years of extra time to say “Hey I know you have some stuff going on but if you want this credential you need to finish” then suddenly you are up to Y12.

Now consider development time.

In Canada, for many very good reasons, there is pretty tight regulation around academic credentials. There are provincial accrediting bodies to ensure that academic programs meet fairly strict standards, including the qualification of instructors and requirements around curriculum, all in an attempt to ensure that students can trust their education and public dollars don't fund diploma mills. This is a huge part of why Canada's post-secondary sector is “flatter” compared to the USA. A consequence of this is that launching programs involves quite a bit of legwork to show that the program will be of sufficiently high quality. From the time someone first says “Maybe we should offer a degree in blah” to the time the curriculum is finalized, we are talking 2 or 3 years. This can be extended even further if there is a regulatory/licensing body in play.

THEN you need a full year for the recruitment/admissions cycle and process to run.

Let's say you have 2 years of development time, blazing fast for academia, and a single full year of recruitment cycle, let in your first cohort, and then as soon as your first graduates cross the floor you realize the program was a mistake and you moved to shut the program down. A 4 year program is now a 15 year commitment.

This is why I rolled my eyes in 2020 when I read people saying “Well why can't I take a major in crypto finance?” No university wants to commit resources to that major until 2035 unless you are confident it will be relevant even longer.

Where I live (Alberta) there is a lot of concern about whether institutions are serving the needs of Albertan learners. This has been true as long as I've worked in post-secondary, and it was true when I was briefly on the government-side a decade ago. Yet every single year, with every single new request, there isn't a standard definition of what is a “Alberta learner.”

Consider four different students;

1) A student born in Calgary, who went to high school in Calgary, then applied to the UofC, and subsequently went to the UofC.

2) A student born in Calgary, who graduated from high school in Calgary, and whose parents moved to Ontario in the summer after grade 12 despite their kid being accepted to the UofC.

3) A student born in Oshawa, who went to high school in Oshawa, and who moved to Calgary after grade 12 to live with a sibling for a few years before attending the UofC.

4) A 35 year old learner who graduated from high school in Fort McMurray, but hasn't set foot in the province for 15 before taking a course at Athabasca University, which leads to transferring to the UofC to do a degree.

Which one of these students is “from” Alberta?

Just the first student? All four?

For as much time is spent discussing whether institutions are meeting the needs of Alberta learners, there's basically 0 discussion about who is considered to be an “Alberta learner.” It gets weirder when you see institutions advertised as ways to boost regional economies and as a way to attract/retain people to live outside of major cities. Programs are expanded or contracted based on whether they are perceived to be benefiting the provincial economy, with no attention paid to whether students are coming from Okotoks or Fredericton. So are they supposed to help Alberta? Or Alberta learners? When do you become an Alberta learner? When do you stop being an Alberta learner?

I want to be clear, I don't think any of this is bad, I'm an annoyingly vocal advocate for the transformative power of post-secondary on personal, municipal, and even national levels. The country is better off when people leave their hometowns. Colleges, polytechnics, and universities are incredible investments even when you come at it strictly from a “dollars invested vs dollars returned” perspective. I just think it's weird that discussions about universities are always framed as-if they can only recruit within the provincial borders when we clearly know that isn't the case. This is example of how institutions are advertised as doing one thing, while being paid and operated to do another, and there isn't any discussion about why that is.