In terms of supply we have an overabundance of grievance mongerers, feminists, and "activists", as was evident at the G20 summit in Toronto. These people thrive in the faculties of social "sciences", arts, and humanities, majoring in such useful programs as English or French (even though it's their native language), Sociology, "Womyns" Studies, Art History, and if the university is lucky enough to have the program Social Justice. From the demand point of view there are only so many NGOs, human rights tribunals, unions, and government bureaucratic make-work jobs to keep them all employed. This to me illustrates that there is a market failure. To fix this mismatch between supply and demand provinces must seriously consider removing subsidies not to Universities themselves (for infrastructure or real research) which I think would be terrible for our country, but by completely removing the subsides from tuition to students who major in the faculties of Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities. Students who take a few classes from these disciplines certainly become more rounded and can improve critical thinking and writing skills, but by only taking classes in these faculties we produce narrow minded graduates. If a high school student really wants to earn a bachelor's degree by reading the Cole's Notes on Shakespeare plays, the soon to be broke Provincial governments and excessively taxed Canadians should not have to foot the bill.
The faculties of Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities are a haven for narrow thinking left wing professors for good reason. Being a professor in these faculties gives someone the opportunity to lecture a class on their views and forces students to memorize and regurgitate their beliefs in tests. Students will usually leave professors' nonsense unchallenged in class to receive good marks (some classes reserve 10% or more of the final mark for class participation/discussions) and to have the opportunity to move on to masters programs or professional programs which usually require professors' recommendations. Noteworthy are the huge volume of left wing law students (think international law, human rights law, family law) likely former political "science", english or women's studies students.
I'm a recent graduate from a large Ontario University who studied in the faculty of social sciences (management, sp finance, minor econ). Assuming my advice was taken by governments 5 years ago, my grade 12 debate between entering a business/commerce program or an engineering program would have been greatly simplified. I would likely of pursued engineering due to the tuition subsidies that I believe should remain on these programs. (Unfortunately I might have graduated less of a staunch conservative or possibly not political had I studied engineering, having not been exposed to wannabe revolutionaries and commies in abundance even on a relatively conservative University campus.)
An important question is of course will the removal of tuition subsidies from these faculties lead to an oversupply of Engineering / Science / Computer Science grads as more people make the decision to study in the subsidized faculties over the unsubsidized ones? The likely outcome of the removal of the tuition subsidies would be a sharp decrease in the enrollment in the Social Science type faculties and a huge increase in the entrance requirements for Science / Engineering faculties. A similar shock was handled quite well by Universities in Ontario after the removal of OAC, albeit with quite a few years of preparation. This would lead to a gradual expansion of spots in math requiring programs. A wonderful result of the ensuing cost cutting in Social Science type faculties would see many over the top liberal professors laid-off (I shouldn't take pleasure in this but having endured a few classes in such areas as political science I enjoy the idea). The strong demand in the labour market for engineering / computer science graduates would be eased over time as the students increasingly choose these areas of study.
Another benefit of the removal of tuition subsidies to certain faculties would be the potential growth of private Universities in Canada. Our country has a near complete lack of private Universities. The noteworthy exception is Quest University in BC. This appears to be a great addition to the higher education landscape of Canada and can help to shake up the stagnant undergraduate programs
The Real Left-Right Split
When political polls are conducted a typical question involved is what is your level of education. The skew frequently observed is that people who claim higher education are typically Liberal/Socialist NDP or Obama lovers. This helps to contribute to the knuckle dragger conservative image in the public. But think of the percentage of University graduates who come from the social sciences compared to engineering grads. The reason I believe this is important is because the real split that defines left and right thinkers is what I will call mathematical literacy. Think of people who despise math. If they attend university without any Grade 12 math courses they cannot enter the faculties of Science, Engineering, Business, or programs in Social Science such as psychology or economics. Without Grade 12 math courses students may still enter extremely important programs such as Nursing but the majority will naturally end up in English/Sociology type programs. If pollsters separated the higher educated into two groups the ones with degrees that involve the requirement of some first year math and those that require no math, I suspect we would see a stronger liberal skew in the non-math cohort and a conservative skew in the math required group.
