Given that the post secondary task force is in Moncton tonight, I thought it might be appropriate to serve up a commentary. I probably should do this in person but I suspect there will be more than one person making the same case.
2001 Census (Moncton CA)
Adult population
Percentage of Anglophones with a university degree: 11.6%
Percentage of Francophones with a university degree: 16.6%
Percentage of Immigrants* with a university degree: 35%
Percentage of all Moncton CA adults with a university degree: 13.4%
Place among Canada’s metropolitan areas? Bottom quartile
Place among Canada metropolitan areas if the Anglophone population with a university degree was equal to the Francophone population? Average among Canadian CMAs.
*Non official language as mother tongue.
2005 = 1,080 graduates from Greater Moncton anglophone high schools
% of graduates going on (or planning to) to university: 65% (from a 2005 graduate follow up survey). Total estimated annual new university population from Anglo schools every year: at least 700.
Total amount going to Mount Allison and ABU: 30% (210)
Total amount leaving the market: Approx. 500 per year
Or about the entire enrolment at Mount Allison (500/year over four years)
Now, I’m not a stickler for another English language university per se in Greater Moncton. But I do think that losing 500 of our university bound kids every year never to see them again is becoming problematic. 25% of the adult population in Fredericton has a university education. In fact, if Moncton ‘pulled its weight’ so to speak and had similar a university educated population as Fredericton, New Brunswick would not be the least educated population in Canada. Far from it, New Brunswick would be mid pack.
So, we have got to find a way to get the education level of the Anglos (and Francos) up in Greater Moncton. And we need university education to do that. Or we get a whole lot better at bringing them back.
Good ideas recently put out there:
- Putting on a bus to Sackville daily (several times) – Mount A wants more students – it’s a win-win
- A new campus in Moncton (Mount A served this up as an option today)
- A bilingual university collaboration between UdeM, MTA, etc. with an enrolment of at least 1,000 or more (or over four years half the potential demand not including pick ups from French Immersion across New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI and even Ontario).
This stuff matters folks. Depending on the study, university educated people make between 20%-40% more than high school grads only. There is a direct correlation between the fact that Greater Moncton has one of the lowest average income levels among metro areas and that it has among the lowest education levels.
Key to long term prosperity (wow bring back the Lordian term!) will be raising education levels in Greater Moncton.
Go get ’em tiger.