tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30875219.post3743416287229139917..comments2023-10-19T11:27:53.931-03:00Comments on true dough: Research vouchers for graduate studentstrue doughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14528611736159255452noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30875219.post-24342426732587332392007-02-27T18:46:00.000-04:002007-02-27T18:46:00.000-04:00The free market is a wonderful thing, but is not t...The free market is a wonderful thing, but is not the solution to this problem. There is already a free market in graduate education, "based on grades, exams and other criteria." When I chose to do graduate work in English Lit at the University of Toronto (and that university accepted my application), our mutual decision was based on exactly those criteria. I chose that university because Northrop Frye, among others, taught there, and the reputation of the school was as the finest place to study graduate English in the country. They accepted me as a student because my grades and recommendations and whatever else they looked at seemed good enough, to them, to warrant my being included in the relatively small number of students enrolled. The reputations of schools is open to some question (<I>Maclean's</I> Magazine examines that issue every fall), and grades and exams -- and all the other criteria -- also leave some margin for error, but does this proposal really offer any improvement?<BR/><BR/>Institutions already compete for students. My daughter chose to study law at Western Ontario rather than at Queen's, when both accepted her. On the other hand, that doesn't really mean one is a better school than the other, only that one seemed to her a better fit for her personality. The suggestion that the university chosen by the best students should get more funding is simply a matter of feeding the rich, since the universities generally acknowledged to be the best are most often of higher quality and standing precisely because they have been better funded, allowing them to hire better faculty, provide better facilities, such as libraries, and provide more and better extras. This makes them more desirable, which attracts the best students, who are often more successful in later life and donate more to their alma maters, and so on and so on. This isn't a solution so much as a recipe for improving the best universities even more, at the expense of their lesser rivals. The elite wants more from the public trough, again, and wants to take it from the hoi polloi. I guess that's not news, though.amphimacerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09414783914693572486noreply@blogger.com