Graduating Students to Inherit Harsh Economy
Our Generation Must Instigate Change
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So far, our generation has had it pretty easy. We have been relatively untouched by the negative effects of the recent recession and conventional wisdom has it that we should be finishing our studies at the perfect time, entering the job market just as a recovering economy begins to pick up steam. But three years later, at the start of another school year, that “perfect time” might not be as ideal as it once seemed.
With the sovereign debt crisis, the weak economic growth plaguing Europe and uncertainty surrounding the health of the US economy, the threat of another recession has now become very real.
There is a growing sentiment among some economists that this decade could be a painful one for the world’s wealthiest economies.
The current economic uncertainties have highlighted the shortsightedness of past generations. Two cases in point: reduction in public spending and our reliance on fossil fuels. It has been known for decades that fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, natural gas) are non-renewable sources of energy and will one day be exhausted. With decreasing supply and increasing demand, an explosion in price was inevitable and has been predicted since the 1960s. Politicians, and, arguably, society as a whole, refused to accept this reality, opting for an economy reliant on cheap but finite sources of energy. Of course, there is no free lunch, and the real costs associated with using these forms of energy were passed along to future generations rather than being acknowledged and confronted.
In recent years the price of oil has exploded, contributing to the 2008-09 recession. Now most of these costs will be borne by our generation. Any blueprint for future economic prosperity needs to not pay lip service to cleaner, renewable sources of energy, but rather clearly outline how our society and economy will make the transition away from dirty fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.
Seeing as the world’s richest nations are currently focused on deficit reduction and austerity, it is doubtful that such a discussion will take place any time soon. It will most likely be us, as the engineers, leaders and innovators of tomorrow that will face the burden of not only healing a planet scarred by decades of degradation, but also developing extremely cost-effective clean sources of energy
for manufacturing and transportation.
Seeing as the world’s richest nations are currently focused on deficit reduction and austerity, it is doubtful that such a discussion will take place any time soon. It will most likely be us, as the engineers, leaders and innovators of tomorrow that will face the burden of not only healing a planet scarred by decades of degradation, but also developing extremely cost-effective clean sources of energy
for manufacturing and transportation.
Instead of discussing how to tackle longer-term problems, North American and European leaders have focused much of their attention on budget deficits—often slashing public spending.The idea behind this concern with the debt and the deficit is the notion that heavily indebted governments create a climate of uncertainty and impede business investment. In this obsession with austerity, education has been a favourite target.
The Quebec government’s plan, outlined in the 2011 budget delivered by Minister of Finance Raymond Bachand, proposes raising university tuition by $1,625 over the next five years. Similarily in the UK, parliament passed a series of austerity measures last fall, including the tripling of the tuition fee cap for university students, upping it from £3,290 to £9,000 in a span of less than two years. The state of California tried to resolve their budget crisis by cutting spending on higher education for 2012 by 23 per cent; it also raised tuition 9.8 per cent for the University of California’s 150,000 undergraduates.
Such measures are myopic and serve only to pass the buck to future generations. It is doubtful whether the short-term gains of reduced budget deficits justify the long-term losses in productivity by a less-educated population years from now. One need only look at Japan, a nation with few natural resources, to understand that an educated, productive population is a country’s most valuable asset.
Our generation now faces a higher cost of living, fewer lucrative job opportunities and a whole lot of uncertainty in the near future. But if human history to date is any indicator, the greatest crises produce the greatest opportunities.
As we graduate, enter the workforce, and start making important decisions, we will have the opportunity to ensure that previous mistakes are not repeated. I believe that, in the decades to come, it will be our generation that undertakes the large-scale transformation from an economy reliant on dirty fossil fuels to clean renewable energy sources. Hopefully, we’ll factor in the long-term cost implications of our decisions, along with their short-term profitability.
