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Category: Canada

How StatsCan Measures Changes in Tuition

Every September, Statistics Canada publishes data on “average tuition fees”. It’s a standard date on the back-to-school media calendar, where everyone gets to freak out about the cost of education.  And we all take it for granted that the data StatsCan publishes is “true”.  But there are some… subtleties… to the data that are worth pointing out. Statistics Canada collects data on tuition from individual institutions through a survey called the Tuition and Living Accommodation Survey (TLAC).  For each field

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September 10, 2014 2 Comments

More Graduate Labour Market Data

Yesterday I showed that recent Ontario university graduates’ incomes are taking a beating, notably in Arts and Sciences.  I’m sure this led to a fair bit of crowing among those who claim we have too many students in university, and they all oughta go to college instead because skills, new economy, yadda yadda. The problem with that argument is that college grads are getting creamed in the labour market, too. Now, we can’t compare university and college outcomes in terms of

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September 9, 2014 1 Comment

Some Scary Graduate Income Numbers

Last week, the Council of Ontario Universities put out a media release with the headline “Ontario University Graduates are Getting Jobs”, and trumpeted the results of the annual provincial graduates survey, which showed that 93% of undergraduates had jobs two years after graduation, and their income was $49,398.  Hooray! But the problem – apart from the fact that it’s not actually 93% of all graduates with jobs, but rather 93% of all graduates who are in the labour market (i.e.

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September 8, 2014 1 Comment

What Students Really Pay

In a couple of weeks, Statistics Canada will publish its annual Tuition and Living Accommodation Cost (TLAC) survey, which is an annual excuse to allow the usual suspects to complain about tuition fees.  But sticker price is only part of the equation: while governments and institutions ask students to pay for part of the educational costs, they also find ways to lessen the burden through subsidies like grants, loan remission, and tax expenditures.  And Statscan never bothers to count that

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August 26, 2014 4 Comments

University of Saskatchewan Detritus

We all remember this spring’s controversy at the University of Saskatchewan over the firing of Robert Buckingham, which resulted in the resignation of the University’s Provost, Brett Fairbairn, and the firing of the President, Ilene Busch-Vishniac.  Despite all the coverage, a number of key questions were never answered, like “how could anyone possibly think firing a tenured professor was a good idea?”  And, “who’s idea was it to fire him anyway – the Provost’s or the President’s?” We now have more

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July 21, 2014 4 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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