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Category: Budgets

Budget Redux: Student Visas

Since last Tuesday, there have been a lot of stories (like this one and this one) talking about how the federal government is reducing the number of new student visas and, as a corollary, how this will negatively impact college and university finances. Many people have asked me why the HESA budget blog didn’t make a bigger deal out of this last week. The answer is: we did in fact write about it in the full Budget Commentary (pages 7-8),

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November 11, 2025 1 Comment

The Canada Student Grant Cut

Somewhat remarkably, no media have picked up the story that the Canada Student Grants were slashed in last week’s budget. Possibly, this is because the government did not issue a press release saying in big letters, “HEY, WE ARE LOADING MORE DEBT ON LOW-INCOME STUDENTS”, and, without such an admission, no one wants to do the hard work of working out what just is going on.   So, let me save everyone the trouble. Here’s what happened: In the 2019 election,

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November 10, 2025 No Comments

Budget Commentary 2025

Hi all. Budget Day was yesterday, and it was a doozy. The HESA Towers team worked late into the night putting together our usual Budget Commentary for you to peruse at your leisure. We hope you enjoy it. But if you haven’t the time to read it in full, here are the five big takeaways. First, although large spending cuts were previewed, the cuts that occurred could not prevent the government from racking up a budget which in real terms was similar to the

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November 5, 2025 4 Comments

The Coming Federal Cuts – Part 3: ISED

Monday, we looked at the country’s overall financial situation (dire), and yesterday we looked at how cuts of a magnitude of 15% might affect key programs like the Canada Education Savings Program and the Canada Student Financial Assistance Program. Today, we’re going to look at how a 15% cut might affect the Government of Canada’s research subsidies, which in the main are run through the Ministry of innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED).  (I will be speaking about “the tri-councils”

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September 10, 2025 2 Comments

The Coming Federal Cuts – Part 2: ESDC

Yesterday, I explained why the federal government now finds itself in a position where it has to cut program budgets by at least 15% just to keep the budget deficit to $50 billion by 2028. Today, I am going to explain how this will play out at Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), which plays a major role in funding for skills and education in Canada, mainly through the Canada Education Savings Program (CESP) and the Canada Student Financial Assistance

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September 9, 2025 2 Comments

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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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