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Category: Data

Some Inter-Provincial Finance Comparisons

Last week, I blogged about how OECD figures showed Canada had the highest level of PSE spending in the world, at 2.8% of GDP.  Many of you wrote to me asking: i) if the picture was the same when we looked at other measures, like per-capita spending or spending per-student; and, ii) could I break things down by province, instead of nationally.  I am ever your servant, so I tried working on this. I quickly came up against a problem,

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April 1, 2015 1 Comment

Data on Textbook Costs

This data is a little old (2012), but it’s interesting, so my colleague Jacqueline Lambert and I thought we’d share it with you.  Back then, when HESA was running a student panel, we asked about 1350 university students across Canada about how much they spent on textbooks, coursepacks, and supplies for their fall semester.  Here’s what we found: Figure 1: Distribution of Expenditures on Textbooks (Fall Semester 2012)               Nearly 85% of students reported spending on textbooks. 

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February 26, 2015 4 Comments

Still No Skills Shortages

With predictably little fanfare, the Government of Canada recently released its Canadian Occupational Projection System (COPS) results for the years 2013-2022.  You may remember the last time they released their 10-year projections back here, which basically showed that, to the extent there were persistent labour shortages in the economy, they were by and large not in the skilled-trades areas the government claimed were in such desperate straits. The 2013-2022 report has unfortunately been written in such a manner as to

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February 3, 2015 1 Comment

Sleepwalking Towards Massively Increased Participation Rates

I was in Berlin last week giving a keynote at the 20th Anniversary conference of the CHE (Centre for Higher Education Policy).  The topic was – promise not to laugh – “What Germany can Learn From Canada”. You said you wouldn’t laugh.  Last time I trust you lot. Anyways, the speech basically revolved around the following graph, which shows Canada’s impressive increase in university participation rates:  Figure 1: 18-21 University Participation Rates, Canada, 1992-2014               So, what

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December 9, 2014 5 Comments

Why We Can’t Have Nice Institutional Data

We’ve all heard of Open Universities, and we’ve all heard of Open Data.  But have you ever heard of Open University Data? Me neither.  And there’s a reason for that.  Two, actually.  Lack of volition, and lack of co-ordination. Lack of volition is the easy one.  Higher Education is a prestige economy.  The cardinal rule is: do not diminish your institution’s prestige.  The institution must be presented in the best possible light at all times.  Therefore, there is no incentive

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December 4, 2014 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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