Higher Education Helps Drive City, Funding Must Follow Accordingly

Business commentary by John Aylen: Our educational institutions are profit centres, not cost centres, and should be supported accordingly. ... The provincial government must provide more funding to our universities. We are saving ourselves into social economic bankruptcy if it does not. Students must understand the necessity and the need to pay for a higher percentage of their education through higher tuition fees - which they should not acquiesce to but demand - offset by a system of loans and bursaries that allows universal access to education for those who are eligible for and merit being accepted to it. Our benefactors must make giving to education a priority. By so doing they are generating economic good, reducing health-care costs, supporting the arts and generating urban renewal. Finally, we must ensure the opportunities are there for our young graduates. It is a cliché to say that competition for our finest minds is global, but it is. As we deliver graduates to our economy, we must ensure they stay, by providing them with quality work and a quality way of life that is superior or at least equal to what it is anywhere else they might go in the world.

The Gazette

http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Higher+education+helps+drive+city/2722860/story.html