when administrators fail to see the big picture

amit chakma, the vice-president academic and provost of my former institution, the university of waterloo, was quoted in today's national post citing his all-too-often quoted views on post-secondary education.

Dr. Chakma of Waterloo said: "If we graduate a medical doctor or lawyer or engineer who is going to earn $70-$80,000 a year, the question arises, should the education of that individual be subsidized by average citizens who are maybe earning $30- $40,000 a year?"

once again, amit shows a skewed and unfortunate perception of education- that of it being a commodity purchased by users for their own economic benefit. however, if we take a slightly more qualitative view of pse, we could realize that the citizen earning $30-40,000 a year has tangible benefits from living an educated society, working at jobs that are fuelled by academic innovaction and prospering because of the developments of academic knowledge outcomes.

the consistent desire of short-sighted, neo-conservative politicos or qualitatively-obsessed, cash-hungry university administrators to link eventual salaries (aka: economic benefit) with education costs hides not only the general economic benefits of education for the whole of society but also the non-economic benefits for both the individual and society as a whole.

also convenient that amit uses averages and not medians and uses professional programs and not all programs to prove his point. perhaps if a belief in education as a public good prevails at waterloo and amit finds himself out of a job he can go and work at the fraser institute :)

. . .