The federal and provincial governments have been underfunding universities for decades. Recently, universities were able to start recruiting foreign students to make up for the shortfall, but it looks like that money tap will be turned down. It doesn’t look like there’s a plan to make up for it.

At the same time, the feds want to

recruit more than 1,000 top international researchers to Canada, with the budget injecting up to $1.7-billion into a suite of recruitment measures.

That’ll be tough if universities see their income crater.

  • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    Yeah. There’s no way you’re going to get older, wealthier Canadian taxpayers to make up the shortfall by cutting back on international students.

    We’re having a hard enough time as it is getting elementary school teachers paid. Universities cost FAR MORE per student than elementary schools. Tuition costs have skyrocketed way faster than inflation.

    Making taxpayers pay all tuition costs is the surest way to get universities defunded completely.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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      8 hours ago

      Tuition costs have been capped for the last 8 years in Ontario. Is everyone just pulling numbers out of their asses?

      • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        Tuition fees have been capped, not tuition costs. Tuition costs go up when universities build more buildings, hire more staff, pay for more electricity and heating. If they’re doing all that stuff to cater to extremely lucrative international students who then get cut off, the school ends up with budget shortfalls.

        This is all excess capacity (and luxury) that domestic students don’t need and didn’t ask for. It’s all designed to compete for international students on the global market.

      • howrar@lemmy.ca
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        7 hours ago

        I don’t think you’re talking about the same thing. There’s tuition cost in the sense of what students pay to get an education, and there’s what it costs the university to provide that education. You can cap the former. You can’t cap the latter.