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Author: Alex Usher

Middle Country Problems, Big Country Solutions

Only three countries have ever sent spacecraft to the Moon, and only one has ever had set humans afoot on it.  “Moonshots”, by definition, are things for big countries with big budgets. So why in the hell do so many folks now want to talk about Canada engaging in “moonshots”?  It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how countries like Canada can best engage in innovation, science and technology: an importation of big country ideas into a context of a smaller country

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January 25, 2022 1 Comment

Ontario Applications Data 2022

Here are three interesting nuggets from last week’s Ontario University Application Centre’s data release. Long Term Trends Students, on average, are applying to a lot more institutions than they used to.  To wit, since 2016, the average number of applications per applicant was 4.7.  It’s now 5.6.  Figure 1: Direct-From-High-School Applications and Applicants, Ontario, 2012-2021 This doesn’t just mean an extra $5 million to OUAC in fees: it affects the way we have to analyse data from institutions.  You probably

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January 24, 2022 No Comments

Tracing Laurentian’s Path Part 4 –Questions, Alternatives and Lessons

So, on January 31 last year Laurentian went into the CCAA process, thus bringing forward hundreds of millions of dollars in debts, and over the course of the next three months tore itself apart in the name of reaching solvency.  100-odd faculty were fired and a few dozen programs shut.  It was all extremely grim.  The question is: was it necessary and were there alternatives? Working backwards from the moment of insolvency, one can ask what happened and ask counterfactuals.

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January 20, 2022 4 Comments

Tracing Laurentian’s Path Part 3 : 2020/21

Laurentian was the first public university in Canada to close its campus in reaction to COVID.  On March 11, after the first case was identified, the institution decided to move to teaching at a distance.  Almost immediately, the consequences of COVID came into view.  The university had anticipated going into the new fiscal year with a combined $40 million in net deficits, line of credit owing, and “internal borrowing”, and now it was $45 million, with projected losses (at the

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January 19, 2022 No Comments

Tracing Laurentian’s Path Part 2: External Shocks

Tracing Laurentian’s Path Part 2: External Shocks Broadly speaking, four external shocks contributed to Laurentian’s downfall.   First, the Barrie Campus and the costs associated with that experiment; second, the loss of 140 Saudi students in the summer of 2018 following the Canada-Saudi Twitter spat; third, the province’s decision to cut tuition by 10% in early 2019; and fourth, COVID.  I’ll add a fifth which was technically not a financial shock but certainly a waste of money.  Let’s go through each

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January 18, 2022 1 Comment

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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