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(Vancouver) BC’s 6-year tuition freeze is not to blame for cost pressures in the post-secondary education system. During the freeze, which was in place from 1996/97 to 2001/02, real-per student funding for universities was flat and increased slightly for colleges. This is the central finding of a new report, which calls on the province to re-introduce the tuition freeze and restore per-student funding to 1991 levels.
One day my daughter came home from high school saying the teachers were really angry at her and a few of her equally high-achieving friends for skipping a test that “didn’t even count.”   “Must have counted for something,” I said. “Oh, it’s got to do with international scores, I didn’t get it,” was the answer as she went out the door.
This spring the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released its annual guide to Canadian post-secondary education—a study comparing the provinces’ commitment to higher education and ranking them accordingly.
When the previous Liberal government came into power in Nova Scotia, one of their mandates was to explore public-private partnerships (P3s), particularly in education. Private companies would finance and build a number of new schools, which would then be leased by the province—in effect, the company would be the landlord and the province the tenant. After the duration of the least the province would buy the school outright from the private contractor.
A new report published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) shows students in Saskatchewan pay higher tuition and fees and graduate with greater debt loads than students in most other Canadian provinces and public universities in the U.S.
TORONTO--While the commitments to education announced by the McGuinty government represent a real improvement over previous years of cuts, a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives concludes that several years of additional funding on the same scale will be required to put elementary and secondary education funding back onto a solid footing.