The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Is Higher Education Still Worth Pursuing?

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

Should students still pursue a university or college education? The Agenda looks at all sides of a very complicated question.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pursuing higher education used to be seen as a stepping stone to greater opportunities in life, a foundation in one's academic journey, a launching pad for your career. But is that still the case? Joining us now to discuss all that and more, we welcome in Sudbury, Ontario, Jennifer Scott, Dean of the Faculty of Education and Health at Laurentian University. In downtown Toronto, political columnist Sabrina Maddow. And with us in studio, Eileen de Corsi, Vice President Academic at George Brown College. And Alex Usher, President of Higher Education

Strategy Associates. Welcome to you all. Thank you. I don't know about you all, but I still get that dream or that nightmare that I'm at university and I have a paper due the next day and I've read zero books. It's just me. But before we start our conversation,

we actually took our camera to the streets of Toronto not too long ago to ask people whether they think there's still value in pursuing higher education. Let's take a look. Do you work in the field you went to school for? No, I don't at this time. Do you work in the field you went to school for? No, I don't at this time. Do you work in the field you went to school for? I used to, absolutely.

And what did you do and what did you do in school? I did a Masters of Library Science at McGill, and then I was a librarian at the Ministry of Education. I actually do not. I am completely different in the field I'm in now. I'm in technical recruiting. And what did you study for? I studied for communication studies. Do you work in the field you went to school for? Not really, but it's related.

Yes, I work in the field that I went to school for. And so what did you do in school and what do you do now? I got a Bachelor's of Education at university level and then I was a teacher for several years. I went and I studied urban development, urban planning and I work in real estate investments, so pretty much same thing. Do you think getting a higher education is still worth it today? I do because it helped me think better, helps me articulate my thoughts better, helps me to develop ideas and work with others. It helps me understand higher concepts. I'm very fortunate that I got a go.

I know it's crazy expensive. It's too expensive in our country, if you ask me. But I'm very fortunate that I got a go and I loved every minute of my education. I think everyone is entitled to at least a university education, if not more. I think it gives people a wider range of options to consider when they're looking at different jobs that that may be available now. Of course the

job markets change since I graduated from university in the 19 mid 80s. I think so many companies out there that I work with in recruiting values, seeing university degrees and I think just also building that camaraderie, building relationships. I was able to acquire my job through referrals and whatnot. I think that's viable. The more people you meet, the better opportunities you can have. And do you think getting a higher education is still worth it today? Well, it can be controversial, but I do not think that.

Like, I think maybe like the system can change. Like, you can change some the way things are, maybe some five years careers can be different. Do you think getting a higher education is still worth it today? Yeah, I think it is, but dependent on what you're doing. I don't think it's worth it just to go kind of get like a blanket degree just for the sake of going

to university, but if you have something you're passionate about, then yes, I absolutely think you should. And then especially if you're going into STEM fields, so anything engineering, mathematics, software engineering, stuff like that is absolutely worth it. But like if you're just going for the sake of it and just getting a random communications degree,

I don't think it is. Especially if you're taking out student loans, definitely not worth it. But yeah, if you have a passion for something, I think so. Jennifer, I wanted to start with you. Why do we go to university in the first place? An excellent question. Like there's a couple of different reasons

for students attending university. Some professions definitely demand that university education. There's those professional schools like Teachers College, nursing, engineering, where you have to have that accredited degree. And there are many others like that in order to pursue that employment later. But other students for those other subjects,

like in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, in that case there, students are going there to achieve that higher education. Let's say they're going there to expand their thinking. They're going there because they are very interested in that subject. They want to engage in that subject, learn more about it. But in the midst of doing so, they're

also learning all the important intangible skills that you're gaining in university, that critical thinking, problem solving, the ability to adapt to different changes, communicate. So that's ultimately what they're getting out of the end. They're going to learn how to learn, learn how to think and grow from there. And also probably because they wanna be a biologist

or they love history or they wanna be in English. There are many reasons for students to attend, but many values in attending. Eileen, I don't want to put you on the spot because you're representing a college, but there seems to be a little bit of a hierarchy between going to college and university. Is one better than the other? Well certainly they both have value and it really is dependent upon what the individual wants to do in terms of their education and their profession. So as an

example when we think about a college education, many people think of a college education as it was in 1960s or the 70s. The colleges in Ontario have really evolved and we we know specifically in the GTA in Toronto the colleges refer to themselves as polytechnics right which provides an opportunity for an individual to start in a certificate program, move through in pathways to a diploma to a degree and now they have the opportunity soon to be able to do postgraduate certificates and graduate degrees and applied masters. So certainly when we think about the value of education and we think about the value

of a college education students often pursue that because they know exactly what they want to do in their profession and they're coming to get hands-on practical skills that get them job ready, provide them with a professional network and a social network so that they're ready to practice as soon as they graduate. Sabrina, I'm going to come to you in a minute, but Alex, a university isn't for everyone, and you say that students have become more utilitarian now. What do you mean by that?

Well, I mean, I think there's been a broad turn maybe in the last 15, 16 years or so, where students, as Jennifer said, there's lots of reasons people go to university. I think the waiting in students' minds about short-term returns seems a little bit heavier in their decision-making than it was, you know, say 20 years ago. You do see that in surveys of students and why they want to go, and you certainly see it I think because young graduates are, or sorry, young students are making more than they used to.

Actually, it's what you can earn while you're a student has actually gone up quite a bit. So their opportunity cost of going to school has been a little bit higher. And so they're a little bit more careful with how they spend their time. And they want to make sure they're doing it in a way that is remunerative. Well, I mean, when I went to university 20 years now, I'm seeing more friends of mine who are like content creators making way more money than I am and I think the value of a journalism degree doesn't carry the same weight as it did maybe 20 years ago. And so you say we're in a skills economy and that doesn't mean it's an education economy.

What do you mean by that? When people say they want skills, right, when employers say they want skills, governments often react and institutions often react as if what they need are graduates. But graduates have knowledge. They've sat through some classes that they don't have as the experience.

And I think that's really what people want. So when people say, you know, gosh, They don't have knowledge, they've sat through some classes, they don't have as the experience. And I think that's really what people want. So when people say, gosh, we have this skills problem in plumbing, or we have this skills problem in digital marketing, they don't mean let's go get more students in. What they mean is, I want people who have a degree plus five years of experience, or a diploma

plus five years of experience. So it's actually, they're talking about training problems that happened a long time in the past. So I think for a lot of institutions and for a lot of governments, the onus or the priority for the last few years has been to try to get students to have more experience while they're in their studies,

what they call work integrated learning. And I think colleges have always had a step on universities in that, that's always work-integrated learning. And I think colleges have always had a step on universities in that, that's always been their stock and trade. But I think using more and more programs in institutions right across the board that are trying to deliver those kinds of opportunities to students while they study. And rules around internships have changed

in the last few years. And you see a lot of discourse online, the frustration that young grads have. They finish school, they apply for a job, but that job insists on like three or four years of experience. Sabrina, you believe that we've lost track of what university is really meant for. Why do you say that? Well, I graduated back in 2010, which is the period that's been referenced by a couple of the other answers. And during that era, especially if you grew up in a city or the suburbs, the answer after

high school was you were expected to go to university simply because university was what you did. And in some cases, that made sense for people's educational goals and careers, but in a lot of cases, it didn't. And so what ended up happening is you had lots of young people going to university but leaving with a lot of debt, not being able to find jobs afterwards or being able to find careers in their field of study, and at the same time again being expected to

have three to four years of experience for an entry-level job. I also graduated in the era of unpaid internships, which have since become illegal. So the path back then was you would graduate, then you would work for free for a couple years, and then maybe you would get an entry-level job. But even today, we're seeing young people with the exact same struggles, graduating with huge amounts of debt, not being connected to the workforce after school, and having not being equipped to contribute to the economy in the areas that there are skill gaps. So it seems that we have lost our way in terms of the true purpose of higher education for both students, but I also think our broader economy and society at large. You know, when you go into

university, there seems to be like this hope of like, this is what I'm gonna do, you graduate, and then you have this hope of what you're gonna do afterwards. And Alex, you have a report that shows the employment rates of university students in Ontario after they graduate. We're gonna bring up that graph and we can see two lines. Sheldon, could you bring that graph up, please?

One line is in blue and one is in red. The blue is two years after students graduate, and the red one is six months after graduation. And it covers the years between 1996 to 2020. We can clearly see that since the financial crisis of 2008, the employment rate of graduating students hasn't recovered. Alex, getting a job after graduation seems to be taking longer now than it did,

say, 20 years ago. Why is that? So there's three things that happened around 2008 that I think are important. And I think Sabrina sort of alluded to one of them, which is, hey, there was a really big recession then. It was tough to get jobs for everyone. But there are two other really big things that happened in the years before that that affected the way that graduates navigated their way through the economy.

And the big one on the university side was we doubled the number of university students we were teaching in Ontario. We had the double cohort back in 2002 and then that expanded the size of universities and the university said let's just keep bringing in more people So there were now more graduates going after this a similar number of jobs Rick So when those those students started coming out, that's 2008 2009 2010 suddenly There's a lot more people with these qualifications competing for jobs But the other thing is is that the people who had these qualifications were quite different, right?

So, you know half the students who were graduating in 2008 would not have graduated in, say, 1988. They wouldn't have been in university. So it's just a different- Explain that for us, please. Well, if you imagine universities taking the top 20% of the academically qualified students in the province, suddenly they're taking the top 40. That second quintile is a very different group of people. You have to teach them a different way, they're interested in different things.

In many cases, I think universities were not ready for those students. I think they've gotten better at teaching those students now. But the point being is that you've got a different composition of students, you've got a larger number of students, and you've got a recession. So there was a lot that happened, and it took about six or seven years for the labour market to catch up to actually need all those graduates. We got ahead of it. If you look at Ontario and how graduates have been doing since about 2014, 2015, it's quite

positive, right? I mean, you know, humanities students are the ones we always, you know, wring our hands about. Their grad, you know, their, their, not only is their employment rate up over where it was, you know, eight, ten years ago, their incomes are up about 14% after inflation. So I, you know what I mean? Like I think, I think there was an adjustment period that we went through. We've gone through it and I think the system's working working pretty well right now Eileen. I see you nodding

Yeah, you know I think that the one thing you were talking about in terms of students and graduates unable to get a foot Into the job market, and I think that's where the colleges and the polytechnics are very well positioned right so our programs Are really based on learning by doing, skill development, behavioral change, really looking at what the industry needs. Every single one of our programs has what is called a program advisory committee that is made up of industry professionals who not only guide the curriculum and the curriculum development process, but also speak to the competencies that are in demand. And they also provide work integrated learning opportunities for our students.

So every student that goes through to a college program, almost every, will have the opportunity to gain that practical experience either in the college itself through simulations and labs but also through the work integrated learning experience. So the whole idea is that they actually have the skill and the experience to enter right into practice. But not only that, is they have the professional network. So when we think about, and Elise, when I went to university as well, I floundered in terms of trying to get a job, because when you graduate initially from your undergrad,

where do you go? Where do you develop a professional network? At least, that was in my time. But now, our students have those professional networks built into their learning experience. They're networking all the time with industry professionals so that they have that opportunity to be able to easily transition into the workplace.

Now, it doesn't always happen, but the opportunity is there for them. Well, you mentioned networking and we were talking a little bit about the financial crisis of 2008, but COVID also disrupted education in ways we haven't seen. I can't even imagine being a young person graduating from high school or even college and then heading into the world when you're dealing with COVID. Jennifer, what ripple effects did that have on higher education?

Oh, goodness, there are so many factors that that had. You have the students that stayed at home, not getting out, they got used to that hybrid way of learning, that remote way of learning, so getting them back into the classroom. They also got used to having everything at their fingertips all the time, all the answers that they would be searching for because they're on their computers constantly. So there's that very responsiveness when they're asking their own questions online and trying to find it themselves that they got very used to. So coming back into the education system,

they have to come to class, they have to communicate with their professors in person, hopefully, sometimes online as well, but that's taking some adjustment. Definitely there's missing chunks of their education as students did try to go through COVID. So we're gonna see this ripple effect go back many years as those students are

now coming through the system. It's not just going to sort itself out in a couple of years. That's mainly on the math and science side of things I would say, but also on the humanities and social sciences side of things as well. Sabrina, you talk about housing. A lot of people value the advice you have on the housing crisis. And if you're a young person, when you finish school, we have this idea. You go to school, you get a good job, and then you start building towards your future. But you say that one of the biggest failures we've had is not encouraging people to go into skilled trades, even though these industries really do benefit from them, for example, in housing.

How have we failed? Absolutely. Well, one of the side effects of what I spoke about before, demanding that university was the natural next step, was that we kind of ignored and abandoned the skilled trades. We actively discouraged a generation of students from going into that type of training. And now we see we have massive gaps in that sector, despite these being very purpose-driven jobs, despite the need being there, and actually quite high salaries as well. So we're playing catch-up at this point in time, and still there's a lot of work to do there.

Governments, especially the Ontario government, has started to address pathways to apprenticeships, better advertising opportunities in the sector. But there's a lot more we can do, especially with the gender gap when it comes to the skilled trades. We're still not getting women into those sorts of jobs, and how can we better get them on those educational pathways? It's interesting, the average age of an apprentice in Ontario right now is still 27 years old. So we've had a lot of people who have come through the academic system, they found themselves

in a lot of debt without jobs, and now they're just starting their journey into the skilled trade. So how do we make that happen sooner? Do you think too, because I remember when I was in high school, there was this kind of idea, well, don't go to college, go to university, and don't go into skilled trades. Do you think that there's still a little bit of that kind of like snobbery around pursuing skilled trades because when you go to university, when you go to college, there's this idea that it exposes you to a bigger world, it develops your critical thinking, which kind

of implies that people in skilled trades don't have those skills, which is obviously not the case. But do you think there is a little bit of that, Sabrina? Absolutely. Unfortunately, there's still a stigma that's lasted. Because when you discourage something for years and years and years, of course that takes time to undo. Like I said, though, skill trades make great salaries

in terms of social skills, critical thinking. They're problem solving all day, every day. They're working with clients, with their teams. So I absolutely don't think that the idea that universities or even colleges are the only way that you can build those skills, whether those are social skills, independence, or critical thinking skills, that's just not true. There are other ways to develop those.

And we should be highlighting those and encouraging those, and also helping to educate both young people and parents who play a large role in what their children decide to do after high school about these opportunities and the benefits that come along with them. Jennifer, I'm going to come to you next, but Alex wanted to... I just wanted to jump in, because I think a lot of what the lack or the inability to get young people into the trades

comes from a set of decisions that happened in the 1990s when we just more or less closed up technical high schools. And so there wasn't that road in. That's not just Ontario. I think pretty much all across Canada we had that issue. The other thing to remember is in the 1990s, trades were a terrible job. Unemployment in the trades were way into the teens, like, so the 16, 17, 18%. Because we had, really, in the construction industry,

about a 20-year recession that started around 1980 and ended around, I guess, 1997, 1998. Since then, the number of people in apprenticeships in Canada has more than doubled, right? If you go back to 2000, we had about 200,000 a year people in registered apprentices that peaked at about 450,000 in 2013, 2014, right about the time the oil price peaked. And it's going down since then,

but it's bouncing back again. So we're back up around 400,000. That's twice as many people as we had in registered apprenticeships 20 years ago. And so the rate of growth has been about what it's been in universities. So we've actually, like I wouldn't be too down on Canada on that one. I think we've done a pretty good job of that, both the, you know, in expanding opportunities at all different levels. Jennifer? Yeah, I'd like to say I do agree with Sabrina on how there was

that big push away from colleges back in the day. But then also going back to that, yes, definitely, you can have not go to university and obtain all these critical thinking skills and problem thinking skills that are so important in today's society. You don't have to go to university for that necessarily. There are so many people out there without the university education that are just exceptional at this and without the college education that are exceptional at this as well.

But I feel for some students that is the way it's a good venue for them to achieve that next stage of their learning, those intangible qualities that they're getting out of it. So for some of those students this is the right path to go. But there's that gap in expectations regarding why go to university and what are you getting out of it in the end? And that is a larger societal question. Why are students, so many students, being pushed towards certain pathways when us necessarily

as a society or the employers might not necessarily understand what is it that the product we're getting at the end? What exactly are we getting out of there? Are they exactly what the skills we need? Or do they have those critical thinking skills and that other side of the picture that will be very helpful in being very adaptable to what I need them to do?

And I think that's kind of a little bit of a gap in our understanding or communication between the two. We have less than 10 minutes. These conversations are always so fascinating. They move so fast. So I just want to move ahead a little bit. Eileen, today you can learn some high demand skills and land some well paid jobs without ever setting foot

on a university or college campus. More industries are hiring graduates with online certificates and degrees. Is it worth going to college or university if you can do that? Well, of course I'm biased. And I'm going to college or university if you can do that? Well, you know, of course I'm biased and I'm going to say absolutely it is worth going on to pursue higher education. We are at a really critical time right now in our history when we start to think about the inflection of the use of AI, artificial intelligence, and we look and think about quantum computing and how

fast we will be able to think about solving world problems and we think about you know as we move forward and we evolve as societies and economies who are the people who are going to be able to do that problem solving for us who are the people who are going to be able to think about the quantum computing and the applications of quantum computing in the financial sector in the sector, etc. There is absolutely a need right now for individuals to go on for a college education and university. There is value in both. I would have to say of course I'm biased and I know that for

college education students have the opportunity as well to move right into the world of work and be able to continue on for their entire life upgrading their skills. And as they do that, we can't stop learning for life, as they do that they have more opportunity for greater earning, you know, value and income. And so absolutely it's really important to you. Alex, I want to come back to your report because obviously cost is something that deters people from, determines what you're going to do

after you finish high school. And getting in debt is almost inevitable for all students. But you point out that the cost of tuition has actually been falling for domestic Canadian students over the past few years. Has it really gone down? Well, the Ford government doesn't get a lot of credit for things in higher education but if you care about

affordability it's done wonders because it's you know they they cut tuition fees for every domestic program by 10% in 2019 and they have frozen tuition fees since then and so after inflation I think that's a cut of about 28% that's a great deal if you're a student. It's a terrible deal if you're an institution who has to use that, who's using that tuition money to pay for the student. But what about higher costs for housing, for food, all those things? But you'd be paying that whether you went to university or not, right?

So yes, it makes it for those students who live away from home, it can make higher education a little bit harder to pay for. But that's only about, you know, that's 50% of students. Some feel the benefit. Only 50% of students. Well, lots of them live at home, right? I mean, like lots of, Canada's a country of very thrifty students.

They like to work, they like to live at home, they like to have a job that takes them, you know, gives them 15 to 20 hours a week. That's actually enough. You know, if you don't have the cost of living away from home, you know, gives them 15 to 20 hours a week, that's actually enough. You know, if you don't have the cost of living away from home, you can make tuition pretty easily on 15, 20 hours a week, plus your summer job. So, you know what I mean?

And so it's only about half the students that do go into debt. And the amount of debt that they go into is no higher now, really, again, after inflation than it was 20 years ago, because governments have been ploughing money into student financial aid. So we we now give out about two billion dollars more if you take into account all the different government programs you take into account the the scholarship programs run by institutions we give out about a billion two billion dollars more a year then we take in in domestic

tuition right so it's about ten ten billion dollars a year in domestic tuition, right? So it's about $10 billion a year in domestic tuition and about $12 billion a year in student aid, excluding loans, right? So we're not even talking about loans here. I think a lot of people will be surprised to hear that. And Sabrina, Alex said, you know, we should give credit to the Ontario government for doing that, because I think there is a perception

that tuition has gone up. But Sabrina, do you think that there is a role for government to play to kind of guide students at different pathways upon graduation? I just also want to touch on financial health coming out of school. I was looking at the statistics right before us filming the segment.

And for those who do graduate with debt from university, the average is now $30,000 of debt coming out of school. And then you combine that with wages that aren't keeping up with the cost of living, the housing crisis, and we are sending students out into the world set up for economic stress, if not failure. If you look at the daily food banks statistics from 2023,

46% of their clients actually have university degrees or diplomas. And even though the cost of tuition might be frozen for obtaining your bachelor's degree, we've also seen degree inflation and credentials inflation where it's no longer good enough just to get your bachelor's degree. You're now expected to get a graduate degree

and maybe other certificates and diplomas after that. So it all starts to add up. And that's something that needs to be addressed for sure. And credentials inflation is actually one area where I think governments could definitely step up in an easy way that doesn't cost anything to taxpayers. We've actually seen a bunch of states do it south of the border where for public sector job postings that don't really need a degree but are currently listing degree requirements, they're transferring skills-based hiring. And of course in Canada, we could enact that as well

for federally regulated workplaces and where the public sector and federally regulated workplaces go, often the private sector follows. So getting rid of the paper ceiling would be a really nice start. We only have a few minutes, but I want to sneak into more questions

because I was thinking about, you know, how you prepare students for when they graduate. Jennifer, do you think that universities need to rethink about how they're preparing students for the real world? That's also a good question. I did talk about that gap in expectations and that's one thing. Students need to do know when they're coming in, what the value of that university education is to society. But I think that is something that universities should be looking at a lot more in terms of creating these partnerships potentially with the private sector or somehow creating a network to help students get summer jobs, so more on the job training, whatever that job will end up being.

If we can create these links, create more opportunities for the students and make it a little bit easier for them, because like Alex said, there are so many more students out there, so actually trying to make those links, make those connections, find those jobs and those opportunities is much more difficult, yet they need those in order to get the job later. So I think that's some way, if there are more resources, more support for the students in that side of things, that would be a really interesting thing to look at for some of those degrees in the sciences, humanities,

that don't necessarily have a direct line into employment. In our last minute, I want to get from all of you, 15 seconds each, please. Just final comments on this question. How can we rebuild faith in a higher education? Eileen, I'll start with you. I want to get from all of you, 15 seconds each please. Just final comments on this question. How can we rebuild faith in a higher education? Eileen, I'll start with you. I think it's highlighting our alumni

and really looking at the absolute incredible accomplishments of our alumni that have gone on to do wonderful things in the industry, as well as making sure that we have private sector and industry partners also really supporting what we're doing in higher education. Alex? Gosh, that's a tough one. Because I don't think that the challenge that people have is necessarily about higher education.

I mean, I think, you know, the point Sabrina made and that you made about higher cost of living, that's making things tough for everybody. But it's not something universities and colleges can do much about. I mean, other than not bringing in more international students and changing the price of housing that way. So I think it's tough. For me, the priority would be make sure the students who are there want to be there, right?

So I think that point about coaching people the right way and making sure they're in programs that they want to be in and not what their parents want to be in. And Sabrina? It has to make economic sense again. As long as we're graduating large numbers of young people in tens of thousands of dollars of debt and they can't find jobs where they can pay rent or even for groceries, we're going to have an issue. And of course, that's more complex than just the higher education sector.

As Alex just mentioned, has to do with greater economic policy and there's all these intertwining crises, but post-secondary institutions can certainly do a better job catering their programs to career outcomes. And Jennifer. I would kind of go back to Eileen's point on the visibility, showing what our alumni do, even research side of things, showing what the higher institutions are giving back to society with the faculty and staff that work there and then also with the students that have gone on to their other jobs and more government support too. I know they have, like Alex said, given quite a bit but you know obviously more would be wonderful to be back into some of these student-focused

programs in order to create these individuals that society wants to see in the end. Thanks so much for your time, all of you. Learned a lot from you. Thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you.