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Category: Canada

The Affordability of Canadian Universities, Part 4

The final objection to the idea I’ve been pushing for the last couple of weeks – namely, that higher education might be getting more affordable (which it is, to some extent, by most tuition-related measures of affordability) – is that tuition-related measures of affordability are in adequate and don’t cover and so do not do justice to the current “the cost of living crisis”.  Broadly, this is true.  But, I suggest, it’s not actually true for everyone, and even for

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November 15, 2022 No Comments

The Affordability of Canadian Universities, Part 3

It turns out that a lot of you really hate the idea that Canada might be experiencing some success with respect to affordability in universities.  Critics seem to focus mostly on one of two factors.  I will deal with the first criticism today and leave the second to tomorrow. Let’s start with the time frame issue.  The problem is the availability of data.  Statistics Canada’s current data on student “tuition and fees” only goes back to 2006-07, but with only

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November 14, 2022 No Comments

The Affordability of Canadian Universities, 2020, Part 2

Ok, so I got a little bit too excited in yesterday’s blog, when I indicated I could show how the increase in student aid spending since 2006 has improved affordability.  I forgot that while I do have aggregate data on grant expenditures across the country, data on how this money is split by institutional type is pretty scarce.  The Canada and Quebec student aid programs do publish data like this, but for some reason neither government chooses to leave older

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November 9, 2022 No Comments

Canada’s New and Wasteful Student Loan Interest Policy

In the Fall Economic Statement last Thursday, Federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that the government will eliminate student loan interest not just on loans going forward, but also retroactively. This was not out of the blue – the government promised this in the last election.  It remains, however, a disastrous idea.  Hundreds of millions of dollars a year for no real net benefit (at least in the field of education).  I have already laid out why this is a

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November 7, 2022 No Comments

Demography is Not Destiny, But….

It is a truth universally acknowledged that, first, Canada is facing something of a demographic trough with respect to young people, and second, that this the reason domestic enrolment at the post-secondary level is slumping.  Except, no.  The first was true 10-15 years ago, and while the second might still be true, it’s about to change in a hurry.  I wrote about reversing demographic trends a couple of years ago, but everyone could use an update because change in this

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October 31, 2022 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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