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Author: Alex Usher

A Closer Look at Chinese Higher Education

China has been home to the world’s largest higher education system for more than a decade now.  Everyone is aware of China’s rise in research over the last two decades: Lord knows the Times Higher Education drowned us all in “Rise of Asia” (by which they really meant “rise of China”) stories for much of the 2010s.  But have you noticed how little we’ve heard lately?  And I don’t just mean during COVID – the chatter about China was declining

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March 9, 2022 1 Comment

Explaining the Alberta Budget (Again)

The Alberta Budget came out last week.  As usual, the way Alberta presents its numbers creates enormous confusion and scope for spin, so permit me to run through the numbers with you. Recall from last year’s explainer that in its annual budget, the government runs two sets of numbers on post-secondary education.  The first is a straightforward “Expense Vote by Program”: that is to say, what the government is actually spending.  The image below shows how that looked in the

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March 8, 2022 1 Comment

Those Two New Laurentian Reports

What Laurentian reports are we talking about now? Last summer, after the big round of layoffs at Laurentian, the administration said it wanted to do three big reviews before exiting CCAA protection – one for its real-estate portfolio, one for its overall operations, and one for its governance.  The first one, to my knowledge, has not been released, but the second and third were released last week.  You can see them here. Ok – anything you want to disclose before

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March 7, 2022 3 Comments

Enhancing Quality

We’ve got a provincial election in Ontario in something like 100 days (as if Omicron and Ukraine weren’t depressing enough), so I thought I would put out a policy suggestion with respect to higher education that all parties could follow, if they were so inclined.  Specifically, a suggestion with how to promote quality in universities. To give you a little bit of background, in Ontario “quality assurance” takes one of two forms.  If you are a new organization trying to

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February 24, 2022 2 Comments

A Tech Talent University?

Late last week, Sheldon Levy, former President of Sheridan College & Ryerson University, former Deputy Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities of Ontario, and current Interim President of University Canada West (UCW) wrote an op-ed in the Globe and Mail about the tech talent shortage in Canada and why existing universities may not be up to the challenge of ending it.  When someone like Sheldon Levy talks, everyone should listen. The op-ed is a follow-up to a white paper that

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February 23, 2022 No Comments

One Thought to Start Your Day

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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