5 ms·

I always find the US system shocking, even just up north in Canada. UBC has comparable numbers of faculty + administrative staff, and services ~4x the undergrad

I always find the US system shocking, even just up north in Canada. UBC has comparable numbers of faculty + administrative staff, and services ~4x the undergrad population. UofT has ~50% more faculty and staff, and handles close seventy thousand undergrads!

WoodenChair 5y ago
> I always find the US system shocking, even just up north in Canada. UBC has comparable numbers of faculty + administrative staff, and services ~4x the undergrad population. UofT has ~50% more faculty and staff, and handles close seventy thousand undergrads! While your overall point is well taken, UBC is not a comparable institution to Yale. UBC has an acceptance rate of around 50%, Yale has an acceptance rate of around 5%. UBC has an endowment of around $2 billion, Yale has an endowment of around $40 billion. These are order of magnitude differences. We can debate whether Yale should have that level of selectivity or endowment, but it's to be expected that a way more selective school with way more resources will spend more on human resources per student. If you want to make a comparison, it would make more sense to compare something like a selective large state university in the United States to UBC, not Yale.
- catgary 5y ago
  I guess the selectivity is what I take issue with - institutions like Yale/Harvard don’t really exist in Canada, and I think we are better off for it.
  - WoodenChair 5y ago
    Keep in mind that the United States has a population 10x greater than Canada, including >3,000 colleges and universities. So there is room here in the market for both highly selective institutions and not selective institutions. It's not like somebody not getting into Yale means they can't go to college.
    - catgary 5y ago
      I mean, it seems like institutions like Yale exist to justify the US’s (insanely) stratified class system.

5 ms·

I always find the US system shocking, even just up north in Canada. UBC has comparable numbers of faculty + administrative staff, and services ~4x the undergrad

by catgary 5y ago

WoodenChair 5y ago
> I always find the US system shocking, even just up north in Canada. UBC has comparable numbers of faculty + administrative staff, and services ~4x the undergrad population. UofT has ~50% more faculty and staff, and handles close seventy thousand undergrads! While your overall point is well taken, UBC is not a comparable institution to Yale. UBC has an acceptance rate of around 50%, Yale has an acceptance rate of around 5%. UBC has an endowment of around $2 billion, Yale has an endowment of around $40 billion. These are order of magnitude differences. We can debate whether Yale should have that level of selectivity or endowment, but it's to be expected that a way more selective school with way more resources will spend more on human resources per student. If you want to make a comparison, it would make more sense to compare something like a selective large state university in the United States to UBC, not Yale.
- catgary 5y ago
  I guess the selectivity is what I take issue with - institutions like Yale/Harvard don’t really exist in Canada, and I think we are better off for it.
  - WoodenChair 5y ago
    Keep in mind that the United States has a population 10x greater than Canada, including >3,000 colleges and universities. So there is room here in the market for both highly selective institutions and not selective institutions. It's not like somebody not getting into Yale means they can't go to college.
    - catgary 5y ago
      I mean, it seems like institutions like Yale exist to justify the US’s (insanely) stratified class system.