But there’s a second issue, too; namely, that CIBC’s argument is pretty much bollocks. Here are four reasons why:

First: it’s flat-out wrong about the nature of the problem.  The problem of filling more engineering spots was always about supply, never about demand.  Engineering is an expensive discipline and ramping up the number of spots is expensive and in the absence of new money from government, funds basically have to be wrung out of the system through various types of program/admin savings and retirements.  That takes time.  And it’s this, more than changes in student demand, that account for the lag in enrolments.  I know CIBC is used to markets that clear, but higher education is not one of those markets and they shouldn’t analyse it as if it were.

Second: Because adding Engineering spots costs money, fees are part of the solution, not part of the problem.  If you reduced fees in Engineering, I guarantee you there would be fewer spots.  And how would that help?

Third: there’s zero evidence that increasing fees, in the context of a fairly generous student aid system where grants are significant and loans are easily available, have had or will have any noticeable effect on demand. Indeed, as the paper itself notes, these programs are growing in demand as fees rise.  It’s a Yogi Berra-esque “nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded” kind of argument.

Fourth: it’s wrong on equity grounds.  These are high-demand, high-reward occupations.  Why in God’s name would we want to increase private rates of return on these, when demand for spaces in these programs are already in excess of supply?  That would just increase windfall gains to the future wealthy.

In short: HuffPost exaggerated its headline.  But CIBC did make a suggestion about reducing tuition, one that suggests they don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the actual underlying dynamics of higher education beyond throwing a stat-heavy newsletter together on the subject once a year.

Do better, guys.