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Category: Data

The Trouble with Economic Impact Statements

Every once in awhile, universities in Ontario all decide to get on a bandwagon and do the same thing at the same time.  This winter, the bandwagon seems to be economic impact statements.  I imagine somewhere, Presidents or Provosts through the province came to the conclusion that under a Conservative government, it might be necessary to “prove their worth” in economic terms, and so, lo and behold, a bunch of institutions (as of Friday) have issued identical calls for proposals asking consultants

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February 4, 2019 No Comments

Good Papers, Bad Titles

Last week, Statscan published a paper by Marc Frenette (their best education analyst by a country mile) called Are the Career Prospects of Post-Secondary Graduates Improving?  The results are interesting, but unfortunately the paper doesn’t really answer the question in the title. The paper compares the fortunes of two groups of Canadians: those who were 25-34 at the time of the 1991 census and those who were the same age at the time of the 2001 census.  It then follows each

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January 29, 2019 No Comments

That Globe Feature on Data Gaps

The big longread event in this weekend’s papers was, without question, Shannon Gormley’s piece in Macleans on the Thai Cave Rescue (if you haven’t read it yet, stop everything and do so.  I’ll be here when you get back.  Amazing, right?  OK, let’s move on.) Anyways, the second most important longread was the big Globe and Mail feature on Canada’s data gaps, which was actually two pieces, one on data gaps generally and one specifically on Statistics Canada and why the agency is not very good.  There was much applause in the

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January 28, 2019 No Comments

Millennial Complaints (Part 2)

So, before I was rudely interrupted last week by Ontario’s government with its tuition/OSAP announcement, I was talking about whether the belief of Millennials that they are a uniquely put-upon generation was justified or not.  My view was they certainly are not if your basis of comparison was income or wealth of Millennials in Canada versus its predecessors (i.e. the so-called “Generation X. But other measures tell a different story. In Canada, the balance on income and wealth tilts in favour of

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January 21, 2019 No Comments

College Finance Data, 2016-17

A few months ago, I promised you all an update on college finances when Statscan finally got around to updating its FINCOL tables.  Well, that day is here. Unlike universities, which have seen their budgets grow in real terms by about 25% over the last decade, growth in college budgets has been a lot slower – only about 14% – and nearly all that growth has come from student fees, since government support has been essentially flat.  In total, college

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January 14, 2019 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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