The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

Category: Access

World Access to Higher Education Day

Today is World Access to Higher Education Day, and I thought it would be fun to use the occasion to celebrate the massive expansion of higher education that has occurred in the last decade and a half, while suggesting some reasons why the expansion may be running out of steam.  Before we begin: all the data in this comes from HESA’s forthcoming publication: World Higher Education: Institutions, Students and Finances, which is scheduled for release January 25th, 2022.  It is

Read More »
November 17, 2021 2 Comments

Support > Illumination

Some things never change.  Specifically, the demands of the academic left in Canada.  Take, for instance, the “Education for All Campaign” which was launched in late January. A joint project of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), the campaign produced this new report, which is not a new report in

Read More »
May 26, 2021 5 Comments

Why is the NDP so Bad on Student Aid?

Here’s a thing which has puzzled me for pretty much the entirety of my adult life: why is it that the New Democratic Party – in theory the party most likely to defend the marginalized – can’t come up with decent student aid policies?  Why is it that at every turn, they choose to embrace the policies that are the least equitable and effective? (Major caveat: I exempt the BC New Democrats from this analysis, because they mostly have their

Read More »
November 12, 2020 2 Comments

Fall 2020 International Round Up: England

This week, I’ll look at news from around the world of higher education.  I’ll skip the US because regular media coverage of the ongoing disaster seems adequate.  Instead, let’s start in the United Kingdom, and specifically in England. Term is just starting over there, so we have yet to see any US-style nightmares, but that’s definitely in the cards.  As far as I can tell, the re-start plan is closer to the US than to Canada’s: less than 100% in-person

Read More »
September 21, 2020 No Comments

Two Great Books on Admissions

An important shift during the last half-decade or so in US higher education is the serious consideration that increased selectivity at the top 5-10% of institutions may be doing real damage to the goal of social mobility.  It’s not just data nerds like Raj Chetty doing big data projects on outcomes: it’s becoming a topic of national conversation.  If you want to learn more about it in detail, you couldn’t do better than two new books: Jeff Selingo’s Who Gets in and

Read More »
September 17, 2020 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.

Subscribe

Search Posts

Search Publications

Social Media

Linkedin Youtube Spotify

Recent Posts

More thoughts on...