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Category: Access

Why the American Free Tuition Debate is Different (redux)

As many of you know, I’ve been around the block a few times around the issue of “free tuition” (see here here here and here for a few examples if you’re interested/have forgotten/find these pieces amusing).  But one thing that I’ve found fascinating about the developing American discourse on free tuition is how very different it is from that of other countries.  I’ve written before about how the presence of private universities changes the nature of the debate in the US, but the actual rationale for universality is

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October 18, 2017 4 Comments

England has lost its damn mind over tuition fees

Ok, I said I wouldn’t write over the summer unless someone of importance said something titanically stupid.  Andrew Adonis, architect of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s education policies crossed that line on Friday with a – yes – titanically stupid column about tuition fees, so here I am. First, some background.  Prior to 1998, the UK had a free tuition system.  From 1998 to 2006 it had a system of varying tuition fees – £1,000 if your family made over £30,000 per year,

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July 10, 2017 3 Comments

Access: A Canadian Success Story

Statscan put out a very important little paper on access to post-secondary education on Monday.  It got almost zero coverage despite conclusively putting to bed a number of myths about fees and participation, so I’m going to rectify that by explaining it to y’all in minute detail. To understand this piece, you need to know something about a neat little Statscan tool called the Longitudinal Administrative Database (LAD).  Every time someone files an income tax form for the first time, LAD

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April 12, 2017 5 Comments

The Western China Dilemma

The South China Morning Post ran an interesting piece recently on the roll-out of China’s Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for Education.  It suggested that in the central and western regions of the country – that is, the poorer, non-coastal bits – the bulk of the task of educational development , including higher education, is going to fall on the private sector.  And yes, this is communist China we’re talking about. Now at one level this might look like a smart move.  Across

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March 28, 2017 No Comments

The Free Tuition Impulse

A few weeks ago I presented yet more evidence about why free tuition was mostly a subsidy for the rich and was unlikely, on its own, to do very much with respect to equalizing access (scroll through here and here if you really want to read me on this subject, though I imagine most of you are pretty familiar with my spiel by now). Someone asked me: “why don’t people like the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), the Canadian Association of

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March 14, 2017 1 Comment

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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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