Simpson regards health care as a problem of the past while education is the problem of the future. He feels that the United States, our biggest competitor, is putting more money into public four year universities than Canada does and that is the reason why, he says, there is such a wide productivity gap between the United States and Canada.

Lately, I have come to realise that this push for phony higher productivity[2] could have been the cause for outsourcing good jobs abroad[3] and for downsizing the number of jobs and the median of workers' income at home[4].

Anyhow, taking aside prestigious American universities for which annual tuition fees are in the order of US$21,100[5], the current annual cost of tuition fees at American four-year public schools are about US$4,700[6]. In addition, there are indications that 4.4 million low-income American students qualified for a four-year college would not be able to enroll, due to rising costs, by the year 2010. In contrast to this situation, Statistics Canada reported an average undergraduate tuition fees of CND$4025 per annum[7].

Rather than looking at statistical economic numbers we would be better off if only we could think a bit more and do our own home work.

References

Pertinent articles published in Ensign

1. Simpson, Jeffrey Our country's future is education, not health care September 11, 2004, The Globe and Mail, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040911/COSIMP11/TPEducation/

2. Definition of productivity. A simple and often-used measure of productivity is real GDP per person-hour worked in the economy. Government of Canada http://canadianeconomy.gc.ca/english/economy/productivity.html

3. Daily Mislead Powell Admits Bush Supports Outsourcing March 17, 2004 http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/read.asp?fn=df03172004.html

4. Economic Policy Institute Weak 2003 labor market leads to lower incomes and higher poverty August 26, 2004 http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_income20040826

5. Gumz, Jondi College Costs: How to cope with rising education costs (pdf) September 3, 2004 Santa Cruz Sentinel http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2004/September/03/local/stories/05local.htm

6. Cormier, Ryan Many students juggle work and school: Rising tuition puts undergrads in the work force (pdf) August 28, 2004 The News Journal, http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2004/08/28manystudentsjug.html

7. Munroe, Susan, University Tuition Fees Up for 2003-04 (pdf) Canada Online http://canadaonline.about.com/cs/university/a/tuition2003.htm