The University of Victoria鈥檚 new president says the size of your paycheque is not the measure of the value of your education. 鈥淛ust as the value of an individual life cannot be assessed in accounting terms, so the value of university research and education cannot be calculated simply by measuring a graduate鈥檚 income and subtracting the costs of their tuition,鈥� Jamie Cassels said after he was installed as president this week.
While most university students and graduates applaud Cassels鈥� commitment, those who are using their expensive degrees to operate espresso machines can ill afford to share his idealism.
Unquestionably, the university must be a place of inquiry, where young minds learn how to ask questions, find answers and think critically 鈥� a place where knowledge is sought for its own sake. The university must be a place for pure and applied research that is needed to advance our understanding of our world.
But those students who are not going to make careers in academia 鈥� the vast majority 鈥� have to look at university through a different lens. They need to mix pure inquiry with a healthy dose of job-oriented training because they are investing in their futures.
Cassels is right that it isn鈥檛 just a question of dollars and cents, but neither is it only about the intellectual skills that university can teach.
Students are investing not just money, but time, energy and direction. Changing direction after graduation is a wrenching experience, and while education is never wasted, four years is a lot of time to make up if you have to start over on a different path.
A recent study by CIBC suggests that too many students are choosing directions in university that leave them handicapped in the job market.
鈥淒espite the overwhelming evidence that one鈥檚 field of study is the most important factor determining labour-market outcomes, today鈥檚 students have not gravitated to more financially advantageous fields in a way that reflects the changing reality of the labour market,鈥� the study said.
The result is that almost half the graduates in psychology and humanities earn less than the median income in sa国际传媒. The unemployment rate for university graduates is only 1.7 percentage points lower than for high school graduates; in the early 1990s, the gap was five percentage points. The proportion of graduates who are working part-time has risen to 13.5 per cent from 10 per cent in the 鈥�90s.
CIBC says that is because so many of the new students are going into fields with the lowest incomes and the poorest job prospects. At the same time, there is a shortage of students in areas with better income outlooks.
Income can鈥檛 be the only measure of a successful university education, but income has a significant impact on quality of life. And students are preparing for life.
Students, parents, high school counsellors and universities have to ensure that young people begin post-secondary education with a clear understanding of the long-term effects of their choices.
Our civilization cannot thrive solely on a diet of engineering, chemistry and computer science; the arts, humanities and social sciences are essential to our intellectual and cultural life. But while we need academic investigators in all fields, we do students a disservice if we encourage them to dedicate years to a discipline in which they have no future, either because they lack the aptitude or because the demand is so small.
As Cassels said, students enter university with 鈥渁 passion for knowledge, the desire to explore the unknown and a thirst to make a difference in the world.鈥�
We must ensure they go into it with their eyes open.
