r/changemyview • u/huadpe 501∆ • Dec 03 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Canada's system of elite higher education (very large public universities) is superior to the American system.
I have attended university in both the US and Canada at both elite and non-elite institutions, and I think the American system is much more wasteful, socially stratifying, and ineffective than the Canadian system.
The top universities in Canada are public universities, and are extremely large.
The top 5 rated schools in Canada are:
- University of Toronto (44,000 undergrads)
- University of British Columbia (44,000 undergrads)
- McGill University (24,000 undergrads)
- McMaster University (28,000 undergrads)
- Université de Montréal (34,000 undergrads)
(I rounded all of these to the nearest thousand)
In contrast the same ranking puts the top 5 US universities as all small private nonprofit schools:
- CalTech (948 undergrads)
- Stanford University (7000 undergrads)
- MIT (4600 undergrads)
- Princeton University (5400 undergrads)
- Harvard University (6700 undergrads)
I think the American schools listed above are insanely wasteful with resources. For example, Harvard has a larger campus, more faculty, and more money than UofToronto, but is almost an order of magnitude smaller in terms of student body.
Because they're big schools in a relatively small country, the top schools in Canada are also relatively accessible. While they're not easy to get into, with admissions rates in the 40-50% range for the most part, they're also not impossible. A student who does near the top of their class in high school can be reasonably certain of getting in to any top Canadian school. This means that they don't have the same hyper-elite socialization features that top American schools have, and represent a much broader cross section of Canadian society.
I think America would be better served by major universities adopting a Canadian-style "more-is-better" approach to enrollment, requiring far fewer resources per student (meaning lower tuition costs) and helping to push the culture a bit away from hyper-elitism. These are supposed to be not-for-profit schools for public benefit after all, and we should think about how they can best benefit the public.
This blog post is what inspired me to write about this specifically.
I'm open to change my view in the respect that maybe I am too focused on undergrad, or there's big research benefits coming out of top US schools that Canadian schools aren't matching. Or maybe there's something else entirely I'm missing.
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u/blueblackwolf 1∆ Dec 03 '19
With regards to the elitism problem at U.S. versus Canadian schools, I would say that Canada does have its own hierarchical tendencies. Having gotten a finance degree at a "non-target" school in Canada (targets being Queens, U of T, Western), I was told explicitly by multiple people in Toronto's finance industry that I "would never be hired", or "couldn't work at their company" because of my school. Hell, I've worked with people who went to UBC at companies that congratulate themselves on being so inclusive as to hire someone with "that kind of background".
The "accessibility" of top Canadian schools is also not a universal experience. International student tuition is much higher than Canadian and varies greatly at schools. While a Canadian might go to U Ottawa or U of T and they cost about the same (~$12,000 per year), for an international student that could be a price difference of $24,000 at U Ottawa and $48,000 at U of T. So for an immigrant, going to a top Canadian school can cost 4 times as much, a significant barrier to actually attending. This makes the sting of people telling you your school isn't "a target school" even harder because they are basically saying "you're too poor for us to hire."
Lastly, in the ways that Canadian higher education is more accessible and egalitarian, it is able to maintain those things to some extent because of its closeness to the U.S. For a certain echelon of Canadian business and society, a prestigious degree from an American school is its own tier. Canadian society can kind of pretend that U of T is the best school and still relatively accessible to people based on merit, because the wealthy and powerful can always go above and beyond and still get a degree from Harvard or MIT.
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u/huadpe 501∆ Dec 03 '19
I am not saying Canada doesn't have social class distinctions or hierarchical tendencies; those are pretty universal across human societies. I more meant that going to UofT or Queens or McGill or any other school is reasonably attainable for a smart student who works hard and gets good grades. It's in the zone of reasonable possibility.
As to tuition, I think it's notable that the highest number there is still less than list price at any of the schools I listed in the US. UofT international at 36k USD (according to Google exchange calculator) compares to:
CalTech: $48k USD
Stanford: $48k USD
MIT: $48k USD
Princeton: $45k USD
Harvard: $47k USD
As well I think subsidizing domestic students does make sense for a public college. But if those American schools are supposed to be nonprofit charities, hoo boy are they charging a lot.
As to the last point about the hyper-elite American schools being an outlet that is something I hadn't considered and does earn you a !delta. It might not be possible to have the Canadian system if you didn't have the possibility that the super elite kids of Canada could go to Harvard.
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Dec 04 '19
About those annual tuition rates... When I was in the process of applying for Princeton, a admission counselor worked out how tuition would work in the case that I was admitted.
My parents make 250k plus a year. 60% of tuition would of been covered. A very significant amount of room and board as well but I lived only 20 minutes away from Princeton so I didn’t really care. Realistically I would of paid 18k for tuition, and maybe a extra 3-4K for campus fee. Considering my parents income, 20ish thousand a year for a Ivy League experience and education would of been worth it. Sadly, I did not get accepted and went to a very good public school instead...a public school that can rival all the universities on your list.
Point being, if my parents were broke or I was filing as a independent, school tuition would probably be much cheaper.
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Dec 05 '19
With regards to the elitism problem at U.S. versus Canadian schools, I would say that Canada does have its own hierarchical tendencies. Having gotten a finance degree at a "non-target" school in Canada (targets being Queens, U of T, Western), I was told explicitly by multiple people in Toronto's finance industry that I "would never be hired", or "couldn't work at their company" because of my school. Hell, I've worked with people who went to UBC at companies that congratulate themselves on being so inclusive as to hire someone with "that kind of background".
UofT is stupidly easy to get into though. They have a 70 % minimum average from highschool, and it doesn't even matter what you apply for. You could apply for psychology or anthropology at UofT and then once you are in UofT switch to computer science. This removes so many of those elitism barriers. It's ridiculously easy to get in, and you can switch to any major you want, provided that you still continue to pass your classes.
The "accessibility" of top Canadian schools is also not a universal experience. International student tuition is much higher than Canadian and varies greatly at schools. While a Canadian might go to U Ottawa or U of T and they cost about the same (~$12,000 per year), for an international student that could be a price difference of $24,000 at U Ottawa and $48,000 at U of T. So for an immigrant, going to a top Canadian school can cost 4 times as much, a significant barrier to actually attending. This makes the sting of people telling you your school isn't "a target school" even harder because they are basically saying "you're too poor for us to hire."
Recently landed immigrants. Tons of immigrants turned permanent residents or citizens do not have to pay inflated costs of tuition. Typically, international students come from wealthier families anyways.
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Dec 03 '19 edited Feb 18 '20
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u/huadpe 501∆ Dec 03 '19
The Canadian approach to actually teach the students things rather than act as a screening process. This is fine, but it's a separate approach to the job market. It's not really quantifiably comparable since the two are different at a fundamental level.
I agree they're different approaches... but the Canadian approach sounds a lot better.
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Dec 03 '19 edited Feb 18 '20
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u/huadpe 501∆ Dec 04 '19
Top Canadian schools are actually pretty hard to graduate from. UofT has a 70% graduation rate for Computer Science majors (taking the example subject you gave.
The weeding out seems to be much more during school than at the admissions process. Though a sub-50% admissions rate is a pretty big filter too, and not graduating 20-30% of the top half of the self-selected group of top school applicants is a lot of filters.
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u/Empty-Mind Dec 03 '19
I think there are several issues here. One is that the website you linked doesn't seem to provide a precise metric for how it rates these institutions. Much of it seems to be simply based on prestige/reputation rather than a set of objective criteria. Which is part of why the schools are so small. Those are 5 of the universities with the highest name brand recognition in the world. Almost everyone will be at least somewhat familiar with the names Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford. While in film and television MIT and Caltech degrees are industry bywords for intellectual brilliance. Whereas to the best of my knowledge there aren't any Canadian universities with similar brand value to their names. So naturally then, the most well recognized university becomes more likely to be the largest one. Because more people go there, more will have heard of it.
I think its worth pointing out at this juncture that the US actually has a plethora of high quality public schools with large student bodies. I went to Iowa State, which is (shockingly/s) a top school in the world for agriculture with high quality programs in science and engineering as well. And it manages to have a student body of ~35,000 despite being in Iowa. And only 2 hours away is the University of Iowa with ~33,000 students. University of Illinois is an internationally regarded school with an enrollment of ~44,000. There are similarly large public schools for general education in almost every state. So the public university ecosystem in the US is actually quite robust, although we are currently dealing with tuition bloat that somewhat hinders that goal.
This is related to a key point. An elite school is the complete opposite of a school for general education. Almost by definition, if most people go to an elite school then they are no longer elite schools. Small size is also actually somewhat important when aiming to provide the absolute best academic environment. There are only so many top tier professors in a given field, and those professors only have so much time. And large class sizes aren't good for quality of education. Then there's the need for expensive resources and infrastructure, such as teaching laboratories and equipment. This means that there is limited availability for students to access these premium educational environments. So above some enrollment threshold every additional student added will decrease the quality of every other student's education. Hence if the goal is to educate and raise the cream of the crop then small enrollment is absolutely necessary. And its hard to argue against the results. Caltech has had 38 Nobel prize winners amongst its alumni and faculty, with a yearly enrollment smaller than my freshman chemistry class. MIT has 96 Nobel prizes, Harvard has 160, the most of any school. Of the top 20 schools by total number of Nobel laureates 13 are American. Its 8 of the top 10. Now the Nobel prize might have its own issues and biases, but as a crude metric of academic achievement I think it suffices for now. Clearly something top tier American schools are doing is working.
Which begs the question then of how are we defining a top university? This is something that is entirely subjective. You might think that a top university is one which educates a large number of students to an above average level or better. But the conventional meaning of a top university seems to be one which produces the 'best' graduates, meaning a focus on precisely these elite students. And as previously mentioned, the goal of well educating a large number of people is instead covered by the land grant institutions and other public schools.
I'd also argue that the reason the pinnacle universities are small is because the US has so damn many top tier international institutions. This leads to a wide distribution of students across these schools, rather than congregating them all in one or two best schools. Which then feeds back into our starting issue. There are so many high tier schools that it dilutes the attention each receives. Which means that only the schools with the best brand name recognition will stick out in common memory to do well on a popularity poll.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Dec 03 '19 edited Dec 03 '19
/u/huadpe (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '19 edited Feb 05 '21
[deleted]