What price on the joy of learning?

Peter Duinker is a professor in the Faculty of Management and director of the School for Resource and Environmental Studies. (Danny Abriel Photo)

O P I N I O N

On September 14 at Dalhousie University, Michael Enright of CBC Radio hosted a panel discussion on the value of a university education. The main question was: is it worth the cost?  With six panelists to engage in the debate, and both live and radio audiences to please, it is no surprise that the two hours of discussion ranged all over the map of university funding and the financial woes of universities from administration, professor, labour, and student points of view.  I found the whole event quite frustrating to witness.

I also felt compelled to inject a little-discussed theme into the fray. Without doubt, university education is expensive in Canada. About six years ago, when she was in Grade 12, my daughter expressed interest in going to University of Western Ontario for a degree. Her inquiries produced information that advised her (and her parents) to be prepared for expenses that would amount to some $17,000 per year. Needless to say, I gulped, and encouraged her to apply for the King’s Foundation Year (which she did) and live at home while getting her first degree at Dalhousie.

And, no doubt, the formula for sharing the cost of a university education between society and students is controversial. More money from government is clearly needed, as well as improved funding assistance to students. All the cost issues need our most urgent attention.

Career prep

But let us examine the benefits side of the equation. Most of the discussion at the CBC forum focussed on preparation for a career. And perhaps it should have been so focussed, for it is clear that career opportunities are a matter of great anxiety for most students, and that is a main reason for attending university.

Within a year from now, the combination of my wife, my four children and me will have a total of 15 university degrees and diplomas. All of us either now have or will soon have the careers of our dreams, and our university educations have played no small part in making that possible. Did we attend university with a fixation on future employment?

It is undeniable that we were all preparing for a career in the fields of our studies. However, I suggest an even more compelling factor driving us to university - a passion for learning. All of us studied - and studied hard - because we love to learn, and we felt fairly certain that university presented the right venue for our learning aspirations.

Critics of this view might suggest that studying at university, at such costs as one endures, merely for the joy of learning is a tad frivolous - only for the rich and perhaps carefree. Not so.  I started my university education penniless in 1972. I went because I thought I wanted to learn about agriculture and forestry at university. I hated my first semester of studies, and got out, heading for farm labour in Saskatchewan in the dead of the Canadian winter. I spent two fabulous years doing various manual labours (learning about agriculture and forestry on the job), and then tried again in winter 1975. This time, I loved it, and the rest is proverbial history (BScAgr 1978, MES 1981, PhD 1986).

Silliness?

Critics might also point to the silliness of paying out so much personal money to study at university merely for the joy of it. I’m no economist, but I do know that people’s willingness to pay for things they enjoy is far greater than for things they do not. The amount of money Canadians pay for vacations, entertainment, pets, make-up, fashion, gambling, high-end food and drink, spectator sports and the like - things they enjoy - is absolutely enormous.  If I enjoy learning as much as I do, why wouldn’t I feel comfortable paying well for the privilege of attending a university to learn?

My point is this - while university education in Canada seems expensive to obtain, a portion of the cost should be assigned to the joy of learning, commensurate with the extent of that joy.  I feel sorry for the students who do not have a passion for learning and take their degree classes merely to prepare for a job or career. As a university teacher, I do not relish the task to try to reach and teach such students. When all participants share a deep passion for advanced scholarly learning, the university experience is most pleasant and worth much more than most of us pay for it.

DISCUSSION: It's your turn. What do you think about Peter Duinker's point of view?

LISTEN: To CBC Radio's Sunday Edition Public Forum