I have updated with my response to the letter. Please note I do not offer a solution just my opinion on the letter. As many people in our society nowadays, I’m an opinion-giver, let others do the work of fixing it.
I can’t write too much on this due to time constraints at the moment, but the Ontario Minister of Training Colleges and Universities responds to the Hamilton Spectator article condemning the government (on behalf of good ol’ Peter George – my entry on this) for not offering extra funding for the extra student McMaster decided to take on this year. The text of the letter follows, I will come back to this post later on so fix it up
The article/letter is here: http://www.thespec.com/printArticle/20947.
To summarize it for you: ministry says “hey we gave you money and you would have received it even if you hadn’t taken on more students.”
Some key points of the letter (everyone likes numbers and statistics. Makes you look cool, unless you fail probability and have to take it again cos the damn prof figured theory would be much better to test students on than…but I digress). Note: these are from the article, in full, I did not even paraphrase. Got it? Alright so here we go with my opinion on this letter and the article it responds to: BULL. To both. I have already explained why I think McMaster’s position is bull (they keep building and the projects keep going over budget). So the key points:
- Between 2002-03 and 2006-07, four years, McMaster’s operating funding increased by more than $60 million to $183 million, a 54 per cent increase in four years.
- I understand the number of students taught increased, over the same period, by 32 per cent, substantially less than the budget increase. We are funding every student, and more. In presenting McMaster’s budget challenges, the much larger contribution by the people of Ontario to education at McMaster over the past four years should be recognized.
In terms of the government’s response…alright I’ll give you the operating fund increase. It’s huge, although I don’t quite see the correlation between a 54% increase in funding and a 32% increase in students. Actually I just don’t see the point of the second statement I’ve extracted. “The number of students taught increased…by 32 per cent, less than the budget increase.” That’s all fine and dandy but are you saying a 1% increase in students should result in a 1% increase in costs and thus funding? [seriously I'm not being sarcastic or anything of the sort, I would just like to understand what you meant to say by that.] Sure it’s a smaller increase but:
What if each 1% increase in students requires more than a 1.6875% increase in funding? Say 1.69%. That alone amounts to a shortage of 0.08%. It doesn’t seem like much, but take that out of the operating budget of $183 million and you end up with $14.64 million $146,400. And all that because every 1% increase in students needed 0.0025% more funding than allotted. It’s amazing how numbers work isn’t it? [I'm not saying that's the math the ministry did, it's just what I understand from their letter. I welcome comments on it and everything else]
- The number of students McMaster takes is up to McMaster, not the Ontario government. McMaster would have received more operating money even if it had not taken additional students.
Again, what are you saying? Of course the number of admissions is up to McMaster and not the Government. That’s just an obvious statement of fact, probably fort those of us who can’t see the obvious, obviously. You’re also saying “McMaster would have received more operating money even if it had not taken additional students.” Did you read the article? It was saying they took on students, and now you’re not giving them enough money. So what you’re saying is that even if you hadn’t taken on that extra 10% we would have given you the money that we haven’t given you anyway. Do you follow that? Because I certainly don’t.
The way I see this charade, university complains, Ministry responds generically. This response is so badly structured it might as well not have existed at all. The points it makes are confusing at best if not irrelevant. I’m sure the ministry’s PR people figured they should respond and wrote this after attending a pub crawl. At least I’m hoping, because if they actually put more thought than looking up facts and spewing them on paper…
~Last edited June 19, 2007 11:20 PM EST
Where did that 14.64 million come from? I’m sensing missing orders of magnitude.
The math is probably off somewhat. I don’t like doing math in the summer. Let me try to work through it on paper and I’m sure I’ll catch it.
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Ministry says number of students increased by 32% and funding by 54%. So that’s about 1.6875% increase in funding per student (54/32).
Then do 32*1.69 = 54.08% This is the increase in funding needed if each student needs 1.69% more funding, not 1.6875%.
The difference between what was given and what would be needed is 54.08-54 = 0.08%
Take that times current operating budget (according to the ministry) 183,000,000 => 0.08/100*183,000,000 = 146,400
So you were right I was off (numbers updated). Math sucks anyway, that’s why I went into engineering.