University

Standards? We don’t need no standards

McMaster president worries about raising entrance requirements

Speaking to the Canadian University Press, McMaster president Patrick Deane worries that unless the province increases funding, universities like his won’t be able to maintain education quality. “It’s good for Ontario that we have a higher level of participation, but is it good for Ontario that what the students are actually getting when they enrol in university is not as good as it might be?”

But in the same interview, he says the shocking possibility that universities might have to raise entrance requirements, in order to ration seats, is “a potentially worrying thing across the whole system because there are many deserving students seeking admission and I think there’s a possibility that the choice of institutions available to students will begin to decline.”

I suppose in a province where more than 60 per cent of students graduate high school with at least an 80 per cent average, it is easy to conclude that every single student already in the university system must certainly be “deserving,” and if entrance requirements rise, and consequently leave out some of these “deserving” students that would be “worrying.”

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