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Category: One Thought to Start Your Day

2026 Provincial Budgets

Last Wednesday, Newfoundland and Labrador became the tenth province to deliver its budget, and that means it’s time for my annual review of provincial budgets. Spoiler: while it’s the usual mixed bag across most provinces, Ontario is the epicentre of this year’s stories. And not in a bad way. Let’s start with overall budgeted provincial transfers to institutions, shown below in Figure 1. Growth this year after inflation is a stunning 6.5% – a rise not seen in 20 years.

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May 5, 2026 No Comments

Mid-Year Update

So, last week, the federal government delivered its Spring Economic Update, a kind of mini-budget for people who can’t wait until November for their fix. I am sure you are wondering what, if anything, changed for post-secondary education. I’ll break it into five topics. First, there’s nothing in there on research apart from yet another round of tweaks to the Scientific Research & Experimental Development Tax Credit. No surprise there. Second, there is nothing in there rectifying or even hinting

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May 4, 2026 No Comments

Hidden Factors in Innovation

I want to draw everyone’s attention to an excellent new thesis on innovative universities from the Netherlands. It’s called Success Factors for Innovative Universities by Daryna (Dara) Melnyk, which I think many of you would find a useful read (some of you may remember Dara from when she joined the World of Higher Education podcast back here; you may also be familiar with her own webinar on innovative universities which you can find here). To be clear, Dara’s definition of

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April 29, 2026 1 Comment

That Yale Report

If you’ve been paying attention to US higher education for the last couple of weeks, you will no doubt have noted a report from Yale University on “Trust in Higher Education”, with much favorable and unfavorable commentary. But what does it really say? And does it make much sense, for Yale or higher education generally, either in the United States or elsewhere? So, one thing that is important to understand about this is that while it contains ten sections, it

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April 28, 2026 2 Comments

Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2005-2026

Two weeks ago, the Government of Ontario tabled Bill 101, the Putting Student Achievement First Act, 2026. Appended to this Act, which mostly deals with K-12 education, is a completely unrelated schedule, which abolishes the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO). The backgrounder to the bill blandly says that  “(in order)…to reduce duplication and administrative burden, the government is proposing to absorb the accountability and performance mandate of the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario into the ministry through this legislation.”

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April 27, 2026 1 Comment

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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