The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

Category: Access

Merit

Universities are among the most elitist institutions in society.  I won’t say they are unabashed by this role: in fact, I’d say they are plenty bashful.  Certainly, there are many people who wish to be as democratic as possible about letting people enter higher education (though this commitment often drops as the institution becomes more elite and prestigious) but a major part of higher education’s purpose is to winnow; to separate the brightest from the merely bright and shuffle them

Read More »
March 25, 2020 4 Comments

Coronavirus (5) – Admissions

Today I want to talk a little bit about what’s going to happen to university admissions worldwide over the next couple of months, and why the chaos looks set to last well into the fall, even if everyone re-opens in the late summer.  I will group the “chaos causers” into three and talk about them in ascending order of chaos. The domestic undergraduate recruitment cycle ended early.  Domestic students often take the spring to figure out where they are going, and

Read More »
March 18, 2020 2 Comments

The Lawsuit That Could Remake Canadian Student Assistance

This week in Toronto, an Ontario court is hearing the case of Jasmin Simpson, a deaf-blind Ontario woman who is suing the federal and provincial governments on account of the way they provide assistance to students with disabilities.  The Ottawa Citizen ran a very good article on the case yesterday, but I thought I would add my $.02 because the case potentially has some very big ratifications. (Before we start, I need to declare an interest.  For several years, I have worked with

Read More »
January 16, 2020 1 Comment

Some Good News on Access

One of my favourite reports released last winter was a little gem, written by a team of Ontario researchers and published by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO), entitled High School Success and Access to Postsecondary Education. It tells the very good news story that access to post-secondary education is rising quite rapidly in the city of Toronto across all income groups.  The study is interesting because it makes use of the Ontario Education Number to link individual record data

Read More »
January 15, 2020 2 Comments

Nordic Student Aid, Nordic Access

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a little bit about Nordic countries and some of the trade-offs they consider in order to keep tuition fees at zero when public funding is under stress.  I thought I would complement this with a piece that looked at the access side of the Nordic system, both in terms of student aid and in terms of the kinds of access challenges that exist even in a free-tuition system. To start with student aid:

Read More »
November 20, 2019 6 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...