EclectEcon

Last week, the C.D. Howe Institute released a study saying that "Canada Needs More Graduate Students." I usually agree with the results of the research done under the auspices of the C.D. Howe Institute, but I have two very sizable nits to pick with this one.

• First, I abhor seeing things cast as "needs". Anytime I read or hear about someone using the word "need", I figure they're trying to put their hands in someone else's pocket. They are, in reality, trying to get taxpayers to pony up for something that will benefit only a few. And in this case (surprise!) academicians think taxpayers ought to cough up more for graduate students, schools, research, etc. No vested interest there... No rent-seeking there, nosiree Bob!
• Second, In the increasingly global economy, or even with increased mobility within Canada, it is not at all clear to me that Canada, especially Eastern Canada, has or should try to develop, a comparative advantage in the production of graduate education. Instead, we should ship our good undergraduate students to the U.S. and elsewhere (including Alberta? see below), let the taxpayers of those jurisdictions foot the majority of the bill for the education, and then hire all the people we want (not need!) from those places.

Sadly, the report seems to confuse the idea that "to grow, we will want well-trained employees" with the conclusion "therefore the gubmnt should train 'em." It doesn't follow.

In fact, we should even consider closing down all our graduate schools and letting all the highly paid professors go wherever the market might take them. For every one of those profs who leaves, we can probably hire at least two assistant professors. We tell 'em we expect them to do research and keep current, but they won't have graduate courses to teach, and they won't have graduate students to be research assistants. I really doubt that undergrad education in Canada would suffer as a result. We would have more professors, albeit on average likely to be of lower research quality, but they would have a much lower student-faculty ratio.

Perhaps Canadians would be better off if Canada let others subsidize post-graduate education. We could then free-ride off their efforts and use our scarce resources to concentrate on something else.

There is one possible exception to this plan: Given that Alberta seems determined to plough a truckload of its oil revenues into research and post-graduate education (see this), perhaps the rest of Canada should try to free ride on Alberta (and the rest of the world). Even so, there is still no compelling evidence that the rest of Canada "needs" more graduate students.