The (Non-)Right to Higher Education

Photo Courtesy of http://flickr.com/photos/qul_photos/204115141/ Students study in Douglas Library at Queen\\\'s University, Ontario, Canada

The goals of post-secondary education are twofold: first, to engage and expand the intellect in a much more focused and rigorous manner than lower levels of education and, second, to prepare the individual for a professional life that requires such intellectual expansion and engagement. Specifically, university education should act as either an intellectual foundation for further professional studies—like liberal arts schools– or a school for professional studies, such as law or medicine. (For careers such as academia and teaching, the university acts as both a foundation as well as a professional school.) The primary aim of post-secondary education should therefore be to prepare promising young minds for the intellectual rigours of professional life. It takes a particular type of individual to be a competent lawyer, doctor, or teacher; in the same vein, it takes a similar type of individual to respond to the requisite academic rigors prior to entering such professions. It is important, then, to ensure that those entering the post-secondary education system are in fact suited for its rigors. The only way, however, to ensure this without excluding those in the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum—who typically cannot pay for university tuition at all—is to institute standardized examinations for all students to take at the end of their secondary education, combined with full funding for top-ranking students. Ideally these examinations would comprise both knowledge-based tests as well as cognition and IQ tests. With this system of examinations in place, each university would have a pool of applicants—ranked by universal standards—from which to choose those best suited for its particular programming.

The thrust of this particular argument is that there are clearly people more suited to a university education than others—a concept that, many would argue, plays on one type of elitism that is no better than any other type. What critics of this scheme tend to miss in their evaluations, however, is that the current elitism prevalent in the post-secondary system—one that determines accessibility on pecuniary lines—is a much more malevolent elitism than one that merely rewards academic and intellectual prowess.

A common fact of life on university campuses across Canada is that most of one’s classmates—especially in the subjects dearer to the liberal arts—will never put their degree to the use for which it was originally intended. The average political science student does not go into law, nor does he pursue the study of political science at the highest levels. According to the 2004-’05 Ontario University Graduate Survey, more than 20 percent of political science students in Canada enter the workforce at the end of a four-year program, working for a corporation or small business that is often only remotely linked to the original program of study. Post-secondary education should be put to its intended use not by just the average student, but primarily by the most promising students for whom—as outlined earlier—university education is most suited.

This, however, will require a very large and sweeping shift in societal attitudes, especially in North America. Most employers require students to have a degree before being hired, regardless of its relevance to the employer’s line of business. North American society has thus placed the university degree firmly in its collective psyche as entirely indispensable and necessary for employment. That attitude, as outlined earlier, does not bear out. The origins of this North American devotion to the university degree are difficult to pinpoint, but in order for a scheme such as the one I propose to work, a societal return to the attitude of mid-20th century Britain, for example, is imperative. In the middle of the last century, Great Britain’s education system was almost entirely publicly funded for the top segment of students, and there was an extensive system of trades schools and articling programs for those students who were either uninterested in or unsuited to the university rigors. The British people viewed university not as a necessity, but as a bonus for the lucky few who were blessed with the abilities to perform at such high levels. Much like athletic prowess, academic prowess was seen as something innate to be both praised and perfected and the universities—like Olympic training facilities—were seen as the institutions to do just that.

Education, then, when considered in light of its ideals and practical role in society, is not something that should by right be accessible to all. Rather, post-secondary education—in the purest sense—is suited to prepare the most promising young minds for the rigors of professional life. But while post-secondary education is not suitable for all, those for whom it is should be afforded the opportunity to hone their intellectual and academic skills in a rigorous environment regardless of their socio-economic standing. This idea, however, requires a fundamental change in our society, which holds university degrees as a prerequisite for serious employment. Only with a shift in this attitude, then, will the ideal nature of post-secondary education be achieved.