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Author: Alex Usher

British Columbia in a Nutshell (2026)

Morning all. A few years ago, I did a series of pieces on provincial higher education systems (for example, back here). I thought I would return to these five or so years later to see what has changed.  I’ll be running these periodically over the next eight months or so, but I thought I would start today with BC – where there is a provincial election in a few days’ time – and head east from there. So, British Columbia.

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October 14, 2026 No Comments

The Contemptible OSAP Cover-Up

If you have been paying only casual attention to the Ontario Student Assistance file over the past few months and seen headlines like this one from July, where the province suspended several private colleges from the program, and this one from last week, where the province sicced the Ontario Provincial Police on unnamed private colleges and suspended all private institutions from receiving OSAP funding, you might be under the impression that the Ontario government is very serious about protecting the

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October 13, 2026 No Comments

The Fifteen: October 9, 2026

Hi all. A big, big fortnight in higher education: unprecedented private financial commitments in Pittsburgh, unprecedented public investments in Jakarta, huge demonstrations in Paris, big ambitions in Hanoi, and significant policy changes out of Beijing. Hop on board for the quick tour! That’s all for now – see you back here in two weeks!

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October 9, 2026 No Comments

The AfD and German Higher Education

In many ways, Germany seems like a higher education paradise. Sure, the funding might not be as generous as elsewhere and career progression can be problematic—but basically, academic freedom is highly prized, as are continental connections across Europe, and policymaking within the system is highly consensual. You can’t have everything, but that’s quite a lot. But as Germans are discovering, consensual decision-making only works if everyone agrees to the ground rules. And in recent years, a new political force has

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October 8, 2026 No Comments

Why Ottawa Can’t Do the Knowledge Economy

I have read two very interesting things in the past couple of weeks. One is Justin Ling’s excellent piece in the Toronto Star about the inner workings of the Carney PMO and what the government thinks it’s accomplishing (tl;dr: as efficient and business-like as the new PMO is, it isn’t actually trying to fix what’s broken in Ottawa because it often doesn’t know what the actual problem is). And the second is Jeffrey Ding’s excellent new book Technology and the

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October 7, 2026 No Comments
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One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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