PSE access lacking in affluent Alberta
In this lively article the Calgary Herald’s Paula Arab discusses Mount Royal College’s long sought-after university status and takes on the issue of access to post-secondary education in Alberta:
Alberta’s post-secondary education is so strapped, it can’t even take care of young people graduating from high school today, never mind absorb the unemployed who wish to pursue more education.
That’s tragic, never mind embarrassing.
According to the province’s own numbers, 3,615 qualified applicants were turned away in 2007 because there was not enough space for them at any post-secondary institution in Alberta. And the majority –four times anywhere else in the province–were students from right here, in Calgary.
Alberta should also be positioning itself to be a leader in the knowledge-based economy, but the sad reality is the province is disgracefully under-represented at the university level, too.