The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

Category: Canada

2026 Provincial Budgets

Last Wednesday, Newfoundland and Labrador became the tenth province to deliver its budget, and that means it’s time for my annual review of provincial budgets. Spoiler: while it’s the usual mixed bag across most provinces, Ontario is the epicentre of this year’s stories. And not in a bad way. Let’s start with overall budgeted provincial transfers to institutions, shown below in Figure 1. Growth this year after inflation is a stunning 6.5% – a rise not seen in 20 years.

Read More »
May 5, 2026 No Comments

Mid-Year Update

So, last week, the federal government delivered its Spring Economic Update, a kind of mini-budget for people who can’t wait until November for their fix. I am sure you are wondering what, if anything, changed for post-secondary education. I’ll break it into five topics. First, there’s nothing in there on research apart from yet another round of tweaks to the Scientific Research & Experimental Development Tax Credit. No surprise there. Second, there is nothing in there rectifying or even hinting

Read More »
May 4, 2026 No Comments

Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2005-2026

Two weeks ago, the Government of Ontario tabled Bill 101, the Putting Student Achievement First Act, 2026. Appended to this Act, which mostly deals with K-12 education, is a completely unrelated schedule, which abolishes the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO). The backgrounder to the bill blandly says that  “(in order)…to reduce duplication and administrative burden, the government is proposing to absorb the accountability and performance mandate of the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario into the ministry through this legislation.”

Read More »
April 27, 2026 1 Comment

Not the Traveling Wilburys

Late last week, two Ontario colleges—St. Lawrence College ( in Kingston, with a substantial presence in Cornwall and Brockville) and Sir Sandford Fleming (in Peterborough)—announced their intent to “integrate as equal partners.” Many people (including me) at first thought that meant the two schools were merging. However, on closer reading of the announcement, I am not sure this is quite the case. Let me quote here from the quite extraordinary announcement: “We are committed to ensuring that students have the

Read More »
April 14, 2026 2 Comments

CAUT Bulletin, 1963

About a month ago, I was doing one of my absolute favourite things in the entire world, which was browsing the shelves of Amy’s Used Books in Amherst, Nova Scotia (IYKYK) for old books on higher education. I picked up a simply ludicrous amount of loot there – the entire back-list of the Bulletin of the International Association of Universities from the 1960s to the 1980s, a copy of José Ortega y Gasset’s The Mission of the University, bound background papers to the Hurtubise/Rowat

Read More »
April 8, 2026 3 Comments
Load More

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.

Subscribe

Search Posts

Search Publications

Social Media

Linkedin Youtube Spotify

Recent Posts

More thoughts on...