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Category: Canada

Tuition Fees and Inequality

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: it’s unfair that some people graduate with debt, and others don’t.  The ones that do tend to have started off poorer to begin with.  And so instead of being a means of social mobility, tuition ends up being a means of perpetuating it – the ones who start off poorer end up poorer.  That’s bad, and that’s why we should have no tuition.  Eliminate tuition and you eliminate inequality. Let’s take this

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May 26, 2014 2 Comments

New Data on Student Debt: the 2010 National Graduates Survey

The National Graduates Survey figures on debt for the class of 2010 were (quietly) released yesterday.  Unlike the employment data they released a few weeks ago, this data actually *is* comparable to results from previous surveys.  It is thus a good way to check on whether/how student debt is actually reaching “out of sight” levels. So, let’s start with some interprovincial comparisons. Average Government Student Loan Debt at Graduation, Borrowers Only, By Province and Type of Institution, Class of 2010  

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May 23, 2014 7 Comments

Deans and Multiple Personality Disorders

Imagine two scenarios.  In the first, an academic is threatened with termination if he/she speaks out publicly against the university’s proposed strategic plan.  In the second, a manager is fired for disobeying a direct order from a superior about running down the company he/she works for.  For most readers, I’d guess the first scenario is abhorrent, and the second quite understandable (if perhaps somewhat harsh).  Yet both scenarios describe precisely what happened to University of Saskatchewan’s Dean, Robert Buckingham. The

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May 16, 2014 12 Comments

Trends in Applications

Some interesting trend data to review from Ontario today. First, there’s the fact that applications from secondary schools have dropped by 3% this year, from 92,892 to 89,609 (as of the February snapshot, which for most purposes is as good as the final numbers, since something like 95% of all applicants apply before the end-of-January line).  This is a moderately big deal since it’s the first time since the double cohort that numbers have fallen. Figure 1: Applications from Secondary

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May 14, 2014 No Comments

Why (Almost) Everyone Loves International Students (Part 2)

Yesterday, I showed how good international students were for universities’ bottom lines.  But it’s not quite as simple as I made it out to be.  Whether admitting international students makes sense or not depends on four factors: 1)      How much of the income do you get to keep?  In Quebec, international students in “regulated” programs (which include Arts) are worth essentially nothing to institutions because the government claws it all back.  On the other hand, in block-grant provinces (and in Saskatchewan,

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May 8, 2014 5 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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