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Category: Canada

The Inter-Generational Equity Thing

I see that one of my favourite student groups, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Association (OUSA), has come out in favour of a tuition freeze.  Fair enough; not many students endorse fee increases, after all.  But the stated rationale for wanting one is a bit disappointing – mixing, as it does, poor historical analysis with poor generational politics. Here’s their thinking: In 1980, student contributions to university operating budgets in Ontario, which include tuition and fees, were only 18 per cent. In 2014, accounting

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January 20, 2016 2 Comments

Would Lower Tuition or Lower Student Debt Improve the Economy?

Short answer: not really, no.  But judging by this Chronicle Herald article last week entitled “Eliminating Tuition Fees would Buoy Bluenose Economy“, bad ideas die hard.  So let’s think this one through. As I wrote back here, there are basically four ways to lower tuition or reduce student debt.  Government can raise taxes to pay for it, borrow to pay for it, re-allocate spending to pay for it, or reduce the cost of educational provision (i.e., cut spending on equipment and salaries).  If you

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January 18, 2016 1 Comment

Innovation Buzzword Bingo

Morning all.  Regular service will pushed back one week to January 10th, but I couldn’t let the Globe op-ed “Southern Ontario Should be an Innovation Cluster, Not a Farm Team” by three Ontario university presidents (McMaster’s Patrick Deane, Toronto’s Meric Gertler, and Waterloo’s Feridun Hamdullahpur) go without comment. The article reads like someone set out to fill a buzzword bingo card.  Words like “supercluster”, “resilient”, “enhancing interaction”, “external connectivity”, “cluster-building infrastructure”, and “entrepreneurship ecosystem” all duly make an appearance; hell, there’s even a

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January 4, 2016 6 Comments

The 2015 OECD Education at a Glance

So the OECD’s Education at a Glance was published yesterday.  It’s taken a couple of months longer than usual because of the need to convert  into the new International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) system.  No, don’t ask; it’s better not to know. I won’t say there’s a whole lot new in this issue that will be of interest to PSE-types.  One point of note is that Statscan has – for no obvious or stated reason – substantially restated Canadian expenditure

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November 25, 2015 No Comments

Scientists vs. Universities: Does War Lie Ahead?

Because universities lobby for science money, there is often a naïve assumption that the interests of scientists (academic ones, anyway) and those of universities are aligned.  But they are not.  In Canada, there is sometimes broad agreement about what to push for (the Canada Foundation for Innovation in the late 1990s was an example), but I would argue that today the interests of scientists and those of universities are about as far apart as they have been at any time

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November 3, 2015 No Comments

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.

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