Increasing access to post secondary education

Premier Campbell’s BC Liberal Government has led the largest expansion in post-secondary education in the last 40 years (see www.gov.bc.ca/yourbc/students). We have created seven new universities and three new medical schools, and have funded over $1.6 billion of capital improvements to those and other institutions and colleges across BC. This has added nearly 36,700 new student spaces since 2001, including 2,500 new graduate spaces by the end of the year, such that anyone graduating high school with a B-average can get into university.

Seven New Universities

1. Vancouver Island University
2. University of the Fraser Valley
3. Kwantlen Polytechnic University
4. Emily Carr University of Art and Design
5. Capilano University
6. Thompson Rivers University
7. University of British Columbia – Okanagan
   

As the chart above shows, our Platform calls for additional funding increases for advanced education over the next three years. By 2011/12, total funding for post-secondary education will be 76 per cent higher than under the NDP’s last year in office.

We know that in these tough economic times, many more students and workers will choose to advance their education and skills. Now the student spaces are there to help them do that, closer to home, at thousands of dollars in savings in travel and accommodation costs.

A BC Liberal Government will further expand BC’s post-secondary system with:

• a new law school at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops in collaboration with the University of Calgary
• a new medical school at UBC Okanagan
  
• a new Wood Design and Innovation Centre at UNBC in Prince George
• a new Earth Systems Science Building at UBC
• a major expansion of the Sauder School of Business at UBC
• the new Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, involving UVic, UBC, SFU and UNBC