Welcome to The Fifteen, a global round-up of the stories animating higher education institutions and systems around the globe. Let’s get to it. And that’s the mid-October edition of the Fifteen. See you back here on Hallowe’en for the next edition. The blog is off next week, but you can still join Tiffany MacLennan for Focus Friday on October 24 (they’ll be chatting about international student enrolment).
Brazil exited the age of slavery 135 years ago. It remains a multi-racial society today. But for much of the twentieth century, Brazil suffered an enormous bout of amnesia. From being one of the last societies on earth to give up slavery, it immediately began touting itself as a place where colour did not matter, that it was a post-racial society. But then about 30 years ago, things changed. Race — or more accurately race and inequality — became a much more prominent subject
Just before I headed out on a work/vacation trip (I’m in Costa Rica today), the Government of Alberta dropped the report of the Expert Panel on Post-Secondary Institution Funding and Alberta’s Competitiveness, which I had previewed back here when the panel was formed about a year ago. So, on the way to the airport, I dashed off this blog to give you all the skinny. First: it’s a good report! Might be the most sensible report on PSE that’s come out in Canada for quite
Ok, folks, today is voting day in Newfoundland and Labrador, and so, as usual, it’s time to look at manifesto promises with respect to post-secondary education. Newfoundland is feeling pretty good these days. Just five years ago it was living with a budget deficit of about $1 billion, and the only reason it was that low was because of a federal bailout for the Muskrat Falls dam. Now, the province *almost* has a balanced budget, it has the fastest-growing provincial economy in
The economics of higher education are tricky. It’s a labour-intensive industry, and generally speaking the cost of producing labour-intensive goods will always increase faster than the price of producing capital intensive goods, because the latter have more scope for increasing productivity. That’s not a problem if you are a public institution in a country with bottomless pockets, or if you are a prestigious private institution with almost unlimited ability to raise prices. If you’re among the other 99 percent of the
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