The provincial government鈥檚 axe has fallen on a regulatory body that oversees private colleges. The board of directors at the Private Career Training Institutions Agency has been dismissed, and the agency鈥檚 duties transferred to the Advanced Education Ministry.
All we can say is, it鈥檚 about time. The agency was a classic case of the fox minding the chicken coop. Seven of its 10 board members were industry appointees.
Their job was to provide consumer protection and guarantee value for money. By at least one important standard, they failed.
Graduates of private facilities default on their student loans at rates more than twice the average at public facilities. And the reason isn鈥檛 hard to find.
Some private colleges charge fees that bear no relation to the earnings potential of their graduates. A 10-month course in hairstyling can cost $14,000.
But the average annual salary for a fulltime hairstylist in the Lower Mainland 鈥� and many cannot find full-time work 鈥� is between $20,000 and $30,000. It鈥檚 inevitable that students who borrow to pay fees that large will struggle to repay the loan.
The price of a three-month course in manicure runs as high as $6,000. Is that value for money? Camosun College charges about $3,200 to train health-care aides. And graduates of that program can earn a starting salary of $50,000.
The issue here isn鈥檛 quality. There are plenty of fine private facilities that offer well-thought-out courses. The issue is price.
As a principle of business, 鈥渂uyer beware鈥� makes sense when the buyers are adults who understand what they鈥檙e doing. But young kids planning their careers may have unrealistic notions about the availability of jobs, or the income they can earn. Before going head over heels in debt, they鈥檙e entitled to know if they鈥檙e getting a fair deal.
As the advanced education minister, Amrik Virk, put it: 鈥淚 want to examine, are the right students getting the right loans for the right programs? Are they programs that the labour market supports?鈥�
Good questions. But let鈥檚 not stop there. What about public facilities such as universities and technical institutes? Are they delivering value for money?
They鈥檙e certainly charging an arm and a leg. Tuition rates at sa国际传媒鈥檚 universities have more than doubled over the past decade. With residence fees included, a four-year undergraduate program now costs between $60,000 and $70,000.
Worse still, a study by the Bank of Montreal suggests that within two decades, kids may be looking at fees in the $130,000 range.
The result is that student debt levels are soaring. By one estimate, the average graduating student in sa国际传媒 owes $27,000.
If the subject area is one of the vocational fields, such as engineering or computer science, that鈥檚 probably a worthwhile investment. But when it comes to an arts degree, the situation is less clear.
The longstanding justification for studying the humanities was that any academic training is beneficial, so long as it is rigorous. And society benefits from having a knowledgeable and literate population.
Those are still important considerations. But the workplace is changing. The ability to design and work with sophisticated technology is rapidly becoming an essential requirement. Employees who lack that skill are at a large, and growing, disadvantage.
That doesn鈥檛 mean the humanities are becoming irrelevant. But it does mean that students should be given a full and frank assessment of their career prospects before the university takes their money.
What proportion of them will end up in well-paying jobs? How long will it take them to repay a $27,000 loan? What percentage of them will default?
Virk is right to press private colleges on these matters. He should go a step further, and make the same demands of all post-secondary institutions.
