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Category: Funding and Finances

60 Years of a “National” Student Assistance Program

The Canada Student Financial Assistance Program (CSFAP)—neé the Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP)—turns 60 years old this weekend. The story of how it came into being and how it still manages to function carries important lessons for the functioning of Canadian federalism, particularly when it comes to making “National Programs.” Education is, of course, a provincial responsibility. It’s part of the deal that made Confederation possible: Quebec could only consent to a national government with representation-by-population government if there a

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April 10, 2024 No Comments

A Skills Agenda is an Infrastructure Agenda

Since it is budget season, and I am increasingly depressed about the prospects for better higher education funding, I thought I should share some musings I have had recently about how to make a better case for funding. I think there is a better story available than the one the sector has been using. And it even has the advantage of being true. Ready? Here it is. As a country, we are losing the skills race because we aren’t investing

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March 11, 2024 2 Comments

The Ontario Funding Announcement

Hi all. Today’s post is on last week’s announcement of a support package for post-secondary education by the Government of Ontario. I’ll be as descriptive as possible; more on the actual distributional impacts will follow. (For a longer version of all this, you may want to check into Monday night’s edition of The Agenda, in which I expound on this stuff along with Mike Schreiner, Peggy Sattler, and Shamji Adil. Fun times. Thanks to Steve Paikin for inviting me on.)

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March 6, 2024 3 Comments

Growth and Cutbacks

As we all start to contemplate what life might look like in the “leaner” universities that will begin to emerge, I thought it was worth re-visiting data on institutional expenditures over time to see where institutions have grown the most and the least, and from that data deduce where institutions might prune. Ideally, for this analysis, we’d have data on employment by function. But this is Canada so of course such data does not exist. What we do have, courtesy

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March 5, 2024 1 Comment

Nova Scotia and the Politics of Listening

I know, I know, you all want more on the ongoing omnishambles that is Ontario. You’re going to have to wait. What’s happening in Nova Scotia is probably more important in the long term (yes, really) and institutions across the country need to pay attention. Normally, Nova Scotia universities are funded through a series of Memorandums of Understanding signed every three or four years or so. Objectives are agreed, and the universities get some planning certainty. This year, very suddenly

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March 4, 2024 6 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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