Spending on post-secondary education must increase if Alberta is to remain a strong player in turning out the leaders of tomorrow, says the president of the University of Alberta.

Despite increasing enrolment and the most construction cranes on the U of A’s main campus in the last 30 years, Rod Fraser said it is time to step up to the plate and invest in the future.

“In 1905-06, our first premier and leading citizens of Edmonton passed the act establishing the University of Alberta, in spite of howling demands to have roads built and the need to build a community,” Fraser told an audience of business leaders at the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce last week.

This same foresight is needed today, he added. Pointing to figures that show university graduates have higher average salaries and lower unemployment rates than those without university degrees, Fraser said it’s time for Albertans and taxpayers “to come back to the table.”

Rod Fraser

He cited figures indicating those who complete university earn an average salary of $42,054 compared to $22,846 for high-school graduates, while the unemployment rate for university graduates is three per cent as opposed to 4.3 per cent for high school graduates and 9.2 per cent for students who have only completed some high school.

While he stopped short of calling on either the provincial or federal governments to ante up more funds, he did question government spending.

“It just doesn’t make sense what Canada is doing with its tax dollars. It’s allocating everything to its health-care sector and letting its university sector go downhill.”

Since 1992, inflation-adjusted spending by the provincial government has increased 47 per cent on health and wellness, yet decreased by three per cent for post-secondary education, says the U of A. At the same time, enrolment at the campus has risen an estimated 24 per cent.

Meanwhile, Fraser said, government spending on tuition fees in Alberta has dropped to $8,548 per full-time student equivalent in 2000-2001 from $13,994 in 1980-1981.

Tuition and fees per student during this same period rose to $3,748 in 2000-2001 from $1,452 in 1980-1981. Fraser also noted that Canada, which was on par with the United States in university funding trends in 1980, has now fallen behind. Further, “our funding of research and development in this province sits at half the level of the rest of Canada.”

The funding is important, Fraser said, because the U of A wants to continue to be able to educate the business leaders of tomorrow. Future graduates should be able to play vital roles as have past U of A graduates, such as geologists who performed essential functions in the Leduc oil discovery and others responsible for major medical advances.

As president of the Edmonton area’s fifth-largest employer – an estimated 47,000 direct and indirect jobs are the result of the existence of the U of A – Fraser wants to see university research continue “to steam ahead to be at the frontiers of science.”

Despite the funding concerns, Fraser boasted of “a powerful momentum” at the university, with its engineering, science and life science programs, a “deliberate and strategic” faculty renewal program, one of Canada’s leading drama departments and a faculty of arts “that vies with the faculty of science for being our largest faculty.”

The U of A serves more than 32,000 students in more than 200 undergraduate programs and 170 graduate programs.