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Category: Canada

Grades, Satisfaction and Miserable Toronto Students

It’s been noted many times (here, for instance) that professors who give easy As tend to do better on course evaluations than those who don’t. But does this work at the institutional level as well? It’s hard to tell directly because all institutions essentially grade on the same curve. But we can get at it indirectly by looking at the gap between high school and university grades, which does vary significantly – at more selective institutions, students see a drop;

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November 25, 2011 No Comments

Beyond Co-op (Part One)

One perennial topic of interest in Canadian higher education (particularly during recessions) is the subject of Work-Integrated Learning – that is, work experience which is organized by an educational institution and which is incorporated into a student’s educational programme. Today, HESA is releasing a paper by Miriam Kramer and me on how students’ work experiences stack up in terms of learning outcomes that contain some interesting results. We asked a little over 2,100 students about a variety of work experiences:

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November 23, 2011 1 Comment

The New AUCC

Reading through a couple of recent AUCC initiatives – notably: the “five commitments”and its new brochure on the value of universities, it occurred to me how much AUCC’s focus seems to have changed in the last few years. Though it hasn’t really been remarked upon, there seems to be a slow but dramatic shift in the way higher education lobbying occurs in Ottawa. As late as 2000, AUCC still had an unrivalled lobbying presence in Ottawa. Individual institutions were starting

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November 22, 2011 No Comments

Why are Toronto Students so Friggin’ Miserable (Part 5)

Last week in our series on student satisfaction (and Toronto students’ lack thereof) we looked at how students’ perception of institutional character – specifically, things like having applied curricula, seeming open to new ideas and offering a supportive environment – correlated with student satisfaction. This week, we’re still on the issue of character, but students’ own characters rather than those of their institutions. The 2012 Canadian University Report survey asked students how much they agreed, on a one to nine

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November 11, 2011 1 Comment

Financial Illiteracy

Last week I joined researchers, policymakers and innovative practitioners at the HEQCO Fear of Finance: Financial Literacy and Planning for Post-Secondary Education conference. Kudos to the HEQCO team for putting on a fantastically relevant conference that brought these diverse groups together; it doesn’t happen very often, and it was engaging for participants step out of our usual silos for a couple of days. I presented on what I call financial aid literacy in PSE; that is, what students and their parents

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November 10, 2011 No 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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