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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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The Finances of World Class Universities (Part 2)
Yesterday we looked at the absolute incomes of world-class universities; that is institutions in the top 200 of the 2017 Shanghai Academic Rankings of World Universities (ARWU). Today, I want to look at the question of whether things are getting better or worse for these institutions. Of the 174 top-200 ARWU universities
The Finances of World Class Universities (Part 1)
Along with my colleague Marcos Ramos, I’ve been working recently on some analysis of “world-class universities” and how they have been getting on in the world. Over the next couple of days I’m going to just lay out some of this research. Buckle in: We define “world-class universities” as any
Student Loan Interest Rate Policy
One student aid policy debate that pops up periodically around the world – most recently in the United Kingdom – is the question of interest rates. On the one hand, you have people who use a slightly medieval line of thought to claim that any interest on loans is a form of
Private Returns, Heterogeneous Products, and Insurance Markets
My last blog post on university tuition – which said that higher education has both public and private returns and charges should be arranged commensurate with the latter – seems to have sparked a variety of responses by email and on the blog. Some of you were trolling, I think,
The Canada-Is-Falling-Behind-on-Study-Abroad Fallacy
If there’s one drum Canadian universities love to beat on international education, it’s that Canada is falling way behind other countries in terms of students gaining international experience during their studies. It’s a great story, except for one tiny thing: it’s not true. It’s really not true. Check out, for instance, this
New Data on Equity and Inclusion?
So, you may have read something last week (perhaps this piece from the Globe and Mail) about Universities Canada’s members all getting together to sign up for a set of Principles on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, and an associated Action Plan on Inclusive Excellence. There is lots of good stuff in these documents,
Bad Numbers
I like to name and shame people who are playing fast and loose with numbers. Usually, this involves taking one “true” data point and then using it to make a point which is unwarranted by the data in context. A couple of examples caught my eye last week. First up: “Students
A Report So Stupid Only a “Thought Leader” Could Have Written It
The week before last, Deloitte – that redoubtable home for “Big Thinking” management consultant types who are nevertheless not big-enough-thinking for McKinsey – released a paper entitled The Intelligence Revolution: Future Proofing Canada’s Workforce. To call it as dumb as a bag of hammers would be deeply unfair to hand tools.
Unconscionable Disciplinary Selfishness
Everyone knows this story, or a variant of it, even if it never hits the papers and no one wants to name names. It goes like this: Professor X simply won’t retire. It’s not that he/she (though it’s mostly he) is staying on for themselves, you understand. It’s for the
Tuition: Walking and Chewing Gum Simultaneously
Since we’re talking tuition this week, I thought I’d take an opportunity to tee off on one of the weakest arguments out there on this subject. You know, the one that goes like this: Higher Education is a Public Good Public Goods should be free Yay, free tuition. There are
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