By increasing admission standards and reducing enrolment, the University of Alberta is planning to deliberately slow the growth of its own student population in order to focus more on research. President Rod Fraser claims that an institution that focuses on research would draw top applicants.

These two changes will make fewer Albertans able to their own province's largest post-secondary institution, which could make Alberta look bad.

But, you ask, can't people travel? Have young people not been going to schools abroad for for decades? Perhaps. But the number of Albertans with access to the benefits of university education will still decrease, because, in these days of rapidly increasing class division, it is much more difficult to obtain a university degree if one must simultaneously pay rent and bills.

Of course, excpetionally talneted and dedicated students will receive scholarships, and they will not have to worry about paying rent and bills aay from home. But if the admission standards at the university go up, then these exceptionally talentedstudents will be the only ones who can stay home in Edmonton to go to school anyway. So only the above-average students will have more trouble getting a degree if the admissions standards go up.

A higher standard will attract more high-calibre applicants form other cities and countries. These students will feel honoured to have been accepted and educated by our university, and will be widely admired when they take their highly valued education back home and leave Alberta behind. And still, many Albertans will struggle, and even fail, to get a degree.

This all points to elitism. The best interests of Albertans do not seem to be the priority of this plan, fo basically, it means fewer Albertans will be university-educated. The value of a University of Alberta parchment will have increased, but for what net gain to Albertans?

The overall plan also includes giving provincial colleges degree-granting status. So what then, would be the meaning of the word "degree"? It would no longer indicate the origin of the certificate, or the calssification of the institution that granted it. Perhaps it would mean simply an amount, calibre, or type of knowledge.

Universities do have a bit of cachet, almost a bit of snobbish superiority. One can get some of the same degrees at the U of A as can be earned at Concordia University College, but the word "college" can dampen the effect just a bit in some minds. I have even heard someone joke: "That just smakcs of community college", yet one can get a lot of advanced education at colleges that isn't available at universities.

So, if the education offered at colleges was given the same designation as the education offered by equivalent undergraduate university programs, would that not be the opposite of elitism? The same certificate would stand for the same education, dispensing with the snooty privilege of universities.

Meanwhile, with increased admissions standards and stronger focus on post-graduatee research, the education offered at the University of Alberta would actually be of a more advanced nature.

What I see in this plan is levelling of the field between college programs and university undergraduate programs offering the same education. The University of Alberta would be required to prove itself worthy of a reputation that is more distinguished than colleges and institutions which do not offer programs and research at the same level. As long as the same education is available in Alberta, regardless of the provider, all of this sounds just fine.