Penny Wise but Pound Foolish? - A Response to the Ontario

We also recognize the support of the University of Toronto and the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy as the Ontario 360 project’s intellectual and administrative home. [...] Introduction In mid-November, the Ontario government released the report of the Blue- Ribbon Panel on Postsecondary Education Financial Sustainability.1 The Panel was convened with the focused task of providing the Minister of Colleges and Universities (MCU) with advice and recommendations to ensure the long-term financial sustainability of Ontario’s publicly-assisted postsecondary institutions (2. [...] They • Confronting the opportunities and are regional hubs of advanced research risks of a rapidly digitizing society, and skills development, driving economic most recently with the mass pandemic growth across sectors and within Ontario’s shift to online learning, and the regions and communities. [...] The review other postsecondary systems, such as should consider the range of important the Université du Québec network of considerations today: positioning autonomous institutions model, the Ontario as a global leader and State University of New York (SUNY) destination; ensuring the quality system with 64 public college and of the student experience for both university campuses across the state,. [...] Rather, this paper is intended as a call We encourage the Minister of Colleges to action, in response to the wider, and Universities - and Ontario’s public generational set of challenges and universities and colleges - to take up this opportunities that Ontario’s universities, call, and truly commit to establishing colleges, and postsecondary system “Ontario Made” postsecondary face.