In this week’s Clarion Call piece, Professor James Cote of the University of Western Ontario, co-author of the book I’ve lately been praising on PBC, discusses the decline of higher education in Canada. The pathology is just the same as it is here — falling standards in K-12 lead to the enrollment of lots of ill-prepared and indifferent students in college. They want a degree, but aren’t much interested in academic pursuits. Administrators want to keep those students, many of whom rebel at doing any serious work, happy and therefore they allow or even encourage professors to increase grades and water down the content of their courses.

The Canadians are spending more and more on higher ed, but Professor Cote questions whether the value received is commensurate.