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Category: Data

A New Study on Postdocs

There’s an interesting study on postdocs out today, from the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars (CAPS) and MITACS.  The report provides a wealth of data on postdocs’ demographics, financial status, likes, dislikes, etc.  It’s all thoroughly interesting and well worth a read, but I’m going to restrict my comments to just two of the most interesting results. The first has to do, specifically, with postdocs’ legal status.  In Quebec, they are considered students. Outside Quebec, it depends: if their funding comes

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October 2, 2013 No Comments

How the Zero-Tuition Crew Could Learn to Love Tax Credits

So, let’s say you’re among those who clings to the idea that tuition isn’t just a massive give-away to upper-income families.  Let’s say you really, really believe that tuition – sticker-price tuition, none of these “net price calculations”, thank you very much – affects access.  How would you go about gathering evidence for your point of view? Ideally, of course, there would be some data showing that, as fees went up, participation went down.  Problem is, the data doesn’t show

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October 1, 2013 1 Comment

Cultural Determinants of Data Acquisition Costs

I saw a fascinating piece in the New York Times awhile back.  It was about a trend at American universities, asking applicants if they were gay or not.  Apparently, these institutions believe that by asking students this question, they are sending a message that they are a gay-positive environment. Interesting. Americans think that transparency about identity is the path to utopia.  Enrolment statistics by race?  They’ve got them.  Indeed, they are required to keep such statistics, because of a clutch of laws

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September 19, 2013 3 Comments

Financing Canadian Universities: A Self-Inflicted Wound (Part 5)

We’ve covered a lot of ground in the last few days.  Back on Tuesday, we asked the question why faculty-student ratios could fall by 20% over two decades when per-student income had jumped by 40% over the same period.  The best way to sum up the answer is with the following graph: Changes in Total and Operating Income per Student, Academic Salary Mass, and Student-Teacher Ratios, Indexed to 1992               The top line is

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September 13, 2013 5 Comments

Financing Canadian Universities: A Curious Story (Part 3)

Yesterday, we saw that Canadian student-faculty ratios rose by 24% between 1992 and 2010, even though operating grants per student went up by 20%.  The cause, it turned out, was a combination of individual academic salaries rising, while aggregate academic wages fell, as a proportion of operating grants.  What we didn’t do yesterday was ponder why academic salary mass didn’t keep up with operating grants, and where the money went as a result. Figure 1 – Operating Expenditures by Category,

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September 11, 2013 4 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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