The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives have recently released a 41-page report named “Degrees of Uncertainty: Navigating the Changing Terrain of University Finance”, which predicts that the price of an average university degree is increasing steadily, the estimated yearly fee of 2016/2017 being triple that of 1990/1991. Though this appears to simply be a cause of changing value in the Canadian dollar, considering $1000 was worth more in the 1900s than 2013, the larger price tag associated with a university degree may serve to disillusion prospective students from applying to universities. Scholarships and government loans may mitigate the problem, but with increasing prices on many essentials, high school graduates may be inclined to focus more on trades jobs, leaving universities with lower enrollment numbers, and thus, less assets. The governments initiative to promote trades-related and the incentive of ‘working’ while being ‘trained’, combined with increasing tuition costs in universities, may cut down on the amount of people taking the ‘white-collared’ jobs that are usually associated with university degrees.
Would this create a positive outcome though? The majority of students currently coming out of high school are applying to colleges and universities, creating an oversupply in certain jobs, which would make finding jobs harder. On the other hand, the lack of experienced tradesmen have opened gaps in that job market, as employers wanting trained workers would be hard pressed to find one. If an increased tuition would result in a rebalancing of the amount of students applying for apprenticeships and for degrees, the increasing tuition may actually be for the greater good.
Source: CBC News