The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

Author: Alex Usher

Branch Campuses, Fake Research, and the Future of Indian Universities

India’s higher education sector is in a permanent state of flux. There’s constant friction between the federal government and the states, as well as ongoing rivalry between a centralized public system and a dynamic private one. In the background, there’s a society that is deeply unequal and riven with discrimination, especially on the basis of caste. And all of this is happening in a country which, despite healthy growth since the turn of the century, is still poor, and where

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April 2, 2026 No Comments

That Was the Quarter that Was – Winter 2026

Morning, all. It being the first of April, it’s time for a quick look at the past three months of higher education stories from around the world. Let’s take a brief look at the issues that preoccupied the sector worldwide. The most important story of the last few months, obviously, is happening in Iran and the Persian Gulf. The year began with the regime massacring thousands of citizens, including hundreds of students on the night of January 8/9. After 40

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April 1, 2026 No Comments

Comparative Crises

If you pay attention to higher education news from around the anglosphere, you may be under the impression that we are “all in it together”: that is, all suffering, in particular, from the loss of international student funding because of a variety of government policies discouraging them. But is it true? Well, no. We are not all in it together. Canada – thanks to the galactic incompetence of the federal government in general, and former immigration Marc Miller in particular

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March 31, 2026 No Comments

Throwback

Jambo! From Nairobi, where I’m spending the next couple of days. I’ve had some long plane flights to get here, and Lufthansa inexplicably hasn’t worked out how to put power chargers in economy seats, so I’ve been doing some re-reading of obscure texts. I want to tell you today about one piece, called Universities Under Scrutiny. Published by the OECD in 1987 it’s very, well…familiar. Let’s start with this quote from the OECD’s Intergovernmental Conference on Policies for Higher Education

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March 30, 2026 1 Comment

Zombie Universities and the Politics of Survival in South Korean Higher Education

South Korea has one of the world’s liveliest higher education policy scenes. For over a decade now, the country’s been dealing with the challenges of a declining youth population, and hence, declining student numbers. Yet at the same time, it’s continuing to invest heavily in knowledge and education from programs in artificial intelligence, to the upgrading of 10 major regional universities, while all the while seeking to offset population loss through the expansion of international student numbers. And all of

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March 26, 2026 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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