Re: Student demand outpaces funding.
It is ironic and dismaying that Canadian universities make inordinate efforts to attract foreign students while B.C. resident students sit on wait lists to obtain a post-secondary education.
The simple truth is that educational institutions go after foreign students primarily for the extra premiums they pay for tuition. They in turn take up seats in classrooms of taxpayers’ children.
While foreign students may contribute to the richness of the educational experience for those local students lucky enough to get in to their own taxpayer-created institutions, the richness is lost on those who can’t get in.
With a lack of seats, the entrance requirements go up, as exemplified by UBC students now needing a mind-boggling 87 per cent average to be accepted.
Ever-increasing entrance requirements are due to competition for limited seats, making it increasingly difficult or impossible for many capable Canadian students to access a post secondary education.
The local demand for some of the same seats occupied by foreign students then prompts the educational institutions to seek even more public funding to increase the infrastructure and hire more instructors, increasing the taxpayer hit once again.
Dr. Ken Macquisten