The public dialogue about universities has been changing in significant ways that threaten universities and the future of Canada itself. The change has come in the form of a narrowing down of the purposes and benefits of higher education. The harm has been caused by the continued underfunding of universities by the federal and provincial governments.

For the last two decades powerful forces, led by such groups as the Business Council on National Issues, the National Citizens Coalition, the Fraser Institute, and much of corporate Canada, have pushed an agenda which is very narrowly focused towards economic competitiveness and privatization.

In 1988 the Science Council of Canada issued its report, "Winning in a World Economy," which stated that:

"A new economic order based on global competition in knowledge-intensive industries is emerging ... In an age when international economic success increasingly depends on knowledge and technological innovation, universities need to engage more actively in economic renewal in Canada ... ways must be found to strengthen the role universities play in the economy ... Universities must reorient some of their activities to provide the teaching and research required by the private sector ... Priority among university activities is now typically given to liberal education and fundamental research ... however, universities must contribute more effectively to economic renewal; they are the primary source of the people and knowledge so urgently needed for industrial revitalization ... hiring, tenure, and promotion systems should increasingly recognize, support, and reward the transfer of knowledge and technology to industry ... If universities do not reach out to meet the needs of society, these needs will be satisfied elsewhere and universities will diminish in importance."

In this narrowed focus the needs of society are reduced to the economic needs of the private sector while the broader and more basic social, cultural and even public economic needs are ignored.

The result of abandoning the broader focus has led to general underfunding of our universities by both levels of government; substitution of targeted for basic operating funding; dramatic raising and deregulation of tuition fees; increasing corporatization of universities; and casualization of academic labour.

Supporters of the narrow private benefit focus now come from all sides and include university presidents and even faculty members. The Ontario advisory panel "Future Directions for Post-secondary Education" (1996), chaired by David Smith, mentioned only weakly the broader public and social benefits because of the "difficulties of assigning a dollar value" to them; but it strongly endorsed the deregulation of fees.

Ironically, presidents and faculty may be setting their own trap, for governments are likely to decide that major increases in student aid necessitated by spiralling tuition rates should come at the expense of basic operating funding.

A recent major U.S. report underlines the folly of an unbalanced public discussion of higher education. The New Millennium Project in Higher Education Costs, Pricing and Productivity, sponsored by the Institute of Higher Education Policy, the Ford Foundation, and the Educational Resources Institute stresses the negative effects of a narrow focus on benefits of higher education. The 1998 report, "Reaping the Benefits," states that "the shift in national dialogue away from higher education's public and democratic purposes and towards its private economic benefits has the potential to significantly alter the way society invests in higher education as a fundamental social institution."

The report concludes that the narrow private gain focus "would have negative consequences on the nation's ability to prosper and succeed." Specific effects could be expected to include growing social and economic disparities; increasing public expenditure on welfare; loss of competitiveness in technological areas themselves; a general decline in the quality of life; declining public health; and diminished civic engagement and citizen responsibility.

Ministers of Education of Canada, take note.