Higher Education and the New M,en of Power i,n Society

It is to the place of higher education in our society that discussion in this paper is directed. The concern here, however, is not with the need of extending the benefits of a higher education, nor with the problem of securing the necessary financial support for such an extension. That need has been well demonstrated and that problem fully explored by the Commission on the Financing of Higher Education in Canada established by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada.1 What this paper is concerned with is the problem of the consequences for society when a large part, but by no means the whole, of our body of young people are provided with the benefits of a university education. It is about the young people left behind - those young people who, for one reason or another, fail to mount the educational ladder to success and whose position in society, as a consequence of the growing importance of higher education, worsens relatively rather than improves. Nothing that is said in this regard should be taken to suggest that we ought to slacken in any degree our efforts to extend the benefits of a higher education. If, underlying the discussion in this paper, there is implied an end to which we should strive it is that the whole of our population should eventually come to enjoy the benefits of such an education, whether secured in a university or some other type of institution. But the realization of such an end is not yet in sight, and in the meantime it is urgent to take account of the consequences for society of the very considerably increased importance which has been given to higher education.