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Originally Posted by you&me
Excuse my ignorance, but why not?
I had to chuckle at the suggestion of the "Women and Gender Studies" student suggesting free tuition... Like Bleeding Red, I can get behind the idea of free, or far more subsidized tuition if it leads to more productive and contributive grads... You want a fluffy degree with dead-end prospects, you should be paying full freight for it.
I think I've read that some European countries reevaluate their domestic labour markets and subsidize studies in vocations that are in demand or underrepresented... I'm not sure of the mechanics of it, but it sounds like a better use of gov't funds than a free-for-all on tuition.
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Yeah, I'm a little confused by some of the resistance. Quite a bit of what was mentioned in that post is stuff that already existed in some form, albeit, not as described by Bleeding Red. Those who went through MRC and SAIT would have glimpsed quite a bit of it.
I recall MRC and SAIT indirectly incentivizing certain subjects that were more in demand. There used to be corporate subsidized events for certain programs. Bookstore coupons for textbooks handed out like candy at business program events. Lots of corporate events for scouting candidates outside of meet and greet events. The registrar would also keep tabs on certain subject scholarships and notify pools of students near graduation to apply for them.
MRC and SAIT also would do many projects that collaborated with industry ranging from training, manufacturing etc. This happened especially during the Olympics. It allowed students an inside track to see what it was like to apply their degree towards a real world job, but also allowed corporations to scout the best that the institutions had to offer.
MRC had small class sizes and frequently culled courses that weren't highly sought after and reallocated resources to put towards more industry demanded courses. I heard SAIT was the same.
I wouldn't select certain subjects to increase tuition on. I'd increase it across the board and increase incentives for certain subjects via industry matched subsidies (ie: scholarships). I'd also put in an emphasis and heavy incentives on students minoring in another category (ie: social science minor). This wouldn't completely cull things like sociology, psychology, linguistics etc. which IMO are quite important tools in many business applications, but would help students to better expand their thought horizons without the bull#### "GPA booster" courses like African drum theory or "Rocks for jocks" geology courses. Nothing against these courses, but I do dislike the concept of GPA booster "useless" courses.
Too many people these days only know what they were taught and have little interest in things outside of their direct specialization. That hurts the industries as a whole creating horrific echo chambers and toxic frat mentalities that on occasion permeate throughout the industry. People constantly reinventing things, when in reality they could hop over to a different subject and innovate that knowledge into better functioning tools for their jobs. Everything is connected. HR with a minor in sociology and psychology helps. HR with numbers background helps. Swap HR with marketing. It's valuable.
One of my buddies is a double major nano-technology and BComm. Absolutely brilliant but also she constantly adapts her science knowledge in her business related work. I find social sciences extremely valuable when combined with other strands of knowledge. It's a catalyst. I find it useless when left as a stand alone concept. I think lots of HR and marketing professionals would be benefitted knowing about gender studies or religious studies. But as a stand alone, I don't pity them for ending up as SJW working minimum wage jobs, because they don't have an appropriate outlet to utilize that information correctly.
When I was in school, I had no idea what to do. My dad told me to take a subject category that should help me at least find a job that paid $30-50 an hour (at the time around 5-10x minimum wage) to at least pay off student loans. After that he said, I could take whatever I wanted as a hobby. I took that to heart. I took courses I had interest in, not for the GPA boosting. I minored in a social sciences and finished with a BComm. I still use the social sciences knowledge I learned to this day, but the BComm is obviously more valuable. I also find that my job enjoyment is higher when applying my social science interest in my work.
I have a significant annoyance with how some of the BComm is taught in school. It's spurred an interest in me to design and improve training materials at my firm as a CPA. It has also spurred an interest of mine into exploring academia. Lots of the entry level accounting is badly taught causing many good candidates to walk away, but also many who continue in accounting to start their knowledge on a weaker understanding than necessary. I've chatted with many in a variety of industries. Many students are not well equipped to enter the work force mentality wise and knowledge wise. We try to bridge this with co-op terms, but in reality, an overhaul of the BComm teaching approach should be done instead.