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Category: Budgets

77% Entitled

At HESA, we’re big on empirical evidence. We like it when people argue with data, rather than resort to the vacuous normative stuff that often passes for debate on issues like tuition fees. So, when I saw that the Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers (ANSUT) had published something on out-of-control executive compensation called A Culture of Entitlement which makes extensive use of data to “shed light on the steep increases in compensation for senior administrators since 2004,” I was naturally pleased.

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September 17, 2012 2 Comments

Back to (Red) Square One

Alex Usher and Joseph Berger The Parti Québécois’ Tuesday night victory will have major effects on higher education in Quebec, but there are implications right across the country, too. Here are a few of them. Inside Quebec, things are back to square one. The PQ has already told student leaders it’s cancelling the increases to tuition; recent improvements to student aid are unlikely to stick, since they were largely going to be funded via tuition revenue – but the PQ hasn’t made any

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September 7, 2012 No Comments

A New Landscape

Just a few quick thoughts on the federal budget (I’m skipping the gory details, but I do encourage you to read our team’s full budget summary, available here.) 1) When can we all publicly admit that the PMO has become the fourth granting council? This habit of handing out money to specific scientific projects outside the tri-council structure is becoming dangerously entrenched. Sure, I’m happy for McMaster and their new $6.5 million health outcomes project, but is it good public

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March 29, 2012 No Comments

The Ontario Budget

Well, I don’t think anyone quite expected that. The quick summary: faced with enormous structural deficits, the Ontario government chose to close the fiscal gap with delays in capital projects, some cross-government efficiency measures and – not to put too fine a point on it – sticking it to public sector workers. The upside is that as a result they managed to avoid program cuts in most areas, which to be honest is a bit of a miracle. If you

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March 28, 2012 No Comments

Final Thoughts on Academic Salaries

So what, if anything, can we conclude from all this salary data we’ve been looking at over the past three days? There are really three issues at play. The first has to do with average salaries – does it make sense that, on average, our professors are essentially the best paid in the world? Well, there’s no reason to begrudge paying top dollar for top talent. If Canadian professors were – collectively – considered to be the best in the

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January 13, 2012 4 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.

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