Originally Posted by jhan523

I've always said that universities are a business. It's probable that most of their income comes from completed research. The more that their professors discover, the more money they make. So pretty much they take our money to invest into research which gets them more research money. That's my opinion anyways. They are mostly about research and recognition than students.

That is one side of it; the other side is that in order to attract investors/donations the way they are doing now they need to quantify/sell the research aspect of the University more so then the collective level of education for the student body. That is why we have new expansions towards Burlington etc. They apparently want to compete with University of Toronto; which is sort of silly under the current financial scenario :S

Originally Posted by Afzal

shouldn't you have written a date later than oct31st on the check or something?!

sue them!!!

They specifically asked me to post date it to that date unfortunately. I don't understand it though, I mean, they should KNOW that my OSAP came in a long time ago. They're the ones that pocketed my money already, way back in September.

It's true that I am only a statistic in this crap that Mac does to people, but the more and more they do it, the more people will realize it and the lower Mac's reputation will get.

Originally Posted by feonateresa

It's true that I am only a statistic

It's a symptom of ALL large/publicly funded universities, and I don't think there's anything that can be done about it unfortunately.

Universities in places like Norway and Ireland where post-secondary education is 100% government subsidized are not considered to be the best quality insitutions worldwide... yes, the people get a postsecondary education, but the institutions themselves are considered "middle-of-the-pack". It's a consequence of public funding... there's never enough money to make things the best they can be. These institutions typically are very large, often on the order of 50,000 undergraduates.

It's not a coincidence that the top ranked universities in the world are all private universities. They have small, exclusive student populations and tuition can cost upwards of $20,000 per year. Harvard university, often ranked #1 in the world, has a undergraduate population of 6700 students, and 2400 faculty. That's a 3:1 student to faculty member ratio. Only the money that comes from a private institution can allow for this (and create the sense of community that subsequently creates a loyal + generous alumni).

PS: there are a few exceptions to this general rule, Oxford university being one example. Oxford is partially sibsidized by the British government, but it has a fantastic reputation partially because it's the oldest university in the western world. Oxford is consistently ranked in the top 10 universities in the world.

Originally Posted by Taunton

PS: there are a few exceptions to this general rule, Oxford university being one example. Oxford is partially sibsidized by the British government, but it has a fantastic reputation partially because it's the oldest university in the western world. Oxford is consistently ranked in the top 10 universities in the world.

Actually, both the University of Bologna and the University of Paris are older than Oxford. Oxford was founded in part by scholars who left the University of Paris and went to England. And there's several in the Islamic world that are older still. (Just learned about this in medieval history)

Originally Posted by Maegs

Actually, both the University of Bologna and the University of Paris are older than Oxford. Oxford was founded in part by scholars who left the University of Paris and went to England. And there's several in the Islamic world that are older still. (Just learned about this in medieval history)

Thanks. By western world, I meant "English speaking world" although that term doesn't really apply anymore since most of the world is English speaking to some extent.

Originally Posted by Maegs

Actually, both the University of Bologna and the University of Paris are older than Oxford. Oxford was founded in part by scholars who left the University of Paris and went to England. And there's several in the Islamic world that are older still. (Just learned about this in medieval history)

Yeah true that; The oldest University in the World is found In Morocco. There were ones even older then that University in modern day Iraq and Turkey but all of them and the books/knowledge within them(both self created and saved from the ancient roman/Greek civilizations) were then destroyed by subsequent invasions and tons of infighting; Especially by the Mongols.

There is an agreement that the Renaissance/Industrial Revolution was probably pushed forward by a few centuries because of the sheer loss of knowledge!

Lyceum!!!!!!!! (and I'm not taking about that school in pakistan :p )

Well, if it makes you feel any better, I "lost out" on $3,000 dollars (scholarships) due to technical details and another $1,000 due to 0.2%. But I would consider my case as being that I got screwed over. Yours is just McMaster doing something totally wrong which happens to be detrimental to you, which (hopefully) gets rectified soon!