Thank you, Nilima; Thank you, Oliver. Please, everyone, keep pushing for real numbers on the costing. Consultant KPMG is involved in SFU’s costing processes, which, may very well be the source of the opacity.
Prof. Dr. Mariana Mazzucato, economist and advocate for reforming capitalism (and recipient of an honorary SFU doctorate), has a new book (March 2023) about KPMG and their like https://www.amazon.ca/Big-Consulting-Businesses-Infantilizes-Governments-ebook/dp/B0B9JDBYFS/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1B48OIQA641GR&keywords=the+big+con&qid=1677871242&sprefix=the+big+con%2Caps%2C188&sr=8-2 The title alone signals the need for caution around their involvement in projects like ours: The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens Our Businesses, Infantilizes Our Governments, and Warps Our Economies.
Having witnessed the building of med schools and other health facilities in several countries and because of my expertise in the political economy of global health, I write with a strong note of caution about KPMG's involvement in the costing of SFU's med school. This is not to condemn them from the outset, just to acknowledge that we will need to push to get real answers. Consultants like KPMG and McKinsey have wreaked havoc on global health projects around the world. They introduce cost-benefit jargon dressed up as meaningful analyses that is often incomprehensible to local folks tasked with making decisions. Their models often ignore local contexts, fairness, and equity measures to the extreme. Most concerning, and something evidenced in my own research findings, I've seen extremely smart people cowed by their presentations, afraid to dig in, question and interrogate KPMG’s basic assumptions, data, models, and algorithms. Please keep pushing for real answers and be unintimidated when questioning the hubris of their operating assumptions.
We need to get this right!
Susan Erikson
Faculty of Health Sciences
From: Nilima Nigam <nigam@math.sfu.ca>
Sent: Friday, March 3, 2023 10:30 AM
To: Oliver Schulte <oschulte@cs.sfu.ca>
Cc: academic-discussion@sfu.ca; Kevin Oldknow <koldknow@sfu.ca>
Subject: Re: Cost Model for Medical School
Dear all
I attended the session yesterday.
It is clear the province - and in particular Indigenous communities - desperately need suitable primary medical care. It's also clear that appropriately trained doctors are a key component of the solution. The proposed medical school may help be part of the solution.
From Oliver's message and the Senate meeting, the cost *per student* is 200K per year. I did not get from the session yesterday enough information about who is paying for this. Certainly the province will contribute. But how much, per student, per year? Put another way - what is the tuition we're going to set for this program, to cover 200K per year? This is a very important fact, which we don't have.
I personally feel that it's critical that we train students from First Nations communities without requiring them to pay huge amounts of tuition. I believe we have a responsibility to not participate in exploitative practices, particularly when it comes to issues as important as medical training. So we should really be pushing for clear costing numbers.
I found the format of the session difficult - it wasn't widely advertised, the timing of the advertising (in the midst of reading break?) was not optimal, and I found it hard to ask questions. [I am also getting on in years, which may explain it.]
thanks
Nilima
On Thu, Mar 2, 2023 at 3:55 PM Oliver Schulte <oschulte@cs.sfu.ca> wrote:
Hi all,
today SFU is starting a series of consultations about the Medical School. This is likely the biggest initiative in the works at SFU, and I can understand the excitement. However, I would like to share a concern I have about the budget model for the Medical School. Basically, do the numbers add up? I did a rough estimate based on the information from the December Senate minutes (p.6) and I'm getting a deficit of $24M per year. Is there some further information that has not been shared in Senate?
If anyone is attending the consultation meeting today, I would be curious if they could ask about the budget model. I would attend myself but the eventbrite page says "This information session and discussion is now at capacity." Which seems strange for an on-line session actually.
Next the numbers I'm using, see spreadsheet.
- Cost per student per year: $200,000 (from KPMG report).
- Number of students: 480 (the March senate meeting gave a figure of 100-120 new students per year)
- total cost per year: $96M
On the income side:
- total grant per year: $60M (I assume this is what "costing" refers to)
- yearly tuition per student: $25K .
My own estimate, this is high if we want to ensure access.- total income per year: $72M
So the total deficit is $24M .
The minutes also mention $200M per infrastructure. I hope this will cover the costs of building the facilities but presumably cannot be used for operating expenses.
Regards,
--
Oliver
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Oliver Schulte E-mail: oschulte@cs.sfu.ca
Simon Fraser University Phone: (778) 782-3390
Professor Fax: (778) 782-3045
School of Computing Science Web: http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~oschulte
TASC 1 Building 9021 Work Schedule: see home page
Burnaby, B.C. V5A 1S6
Canada
--
Nilima Nigam
Professor
Dept. of Mathematics
Simon Fraser University