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Category: Funding and Finances

Update on University Finances

Last week, I wrote about college finances. Today I thought I would spend some time updating some of the more interesting graphs I’ve done over the past few years with respect to university finances.  I do quite a lot on university finances in HESA’s annual State of Post-Secondary Education, but over the years I have also done some slightly more bespoke takes that don’t make it into SPEC. And so, herewith, my 2024 update on those numbers. In Figure 1,

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January 31, 2024 No Comments

The Failed Fees Free Policy in New Zealand

New Zealand has always been a place unafraid to experiment in higher education. That’s partially because change is often easier to make in small countries (it’s easier to get everyone in a room), but also because the country itself has found innovation key to success. One of the biggest recent changes was the introduction of free first year for university students, something that was introduced by Jacinda Ardern, something we discussed with a previous guest, Dave Guerin, about a year

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January 25, 2024 1 Comment

Is Queen’s Running Out of Money?

Earlier this month, the Queen’s student newspaper, The Queen’s Journal, reported on what seems to have been an extraordinary outburst by the university’s Provost, Matthew Evans, during a campus Town Hall to discuss cutbacks in early December. During this meeting, the Provost is alleged to have said “I’m concerned about the survival of this institution. Unless we sort this out, we will go under.” The story was picked up by a number of outlets across the country, including CTV and

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January 22, 2024 6 Comments

College Finances 2021-22

Statscan released new data on community college enrolments and finances last month. That’s an excellent opportunity for me to update some of my favourite charts. Let’s start with what’s been happening in terms of income over the past couple of years. Turns out college revenue has been relatively stable at $14 billion over the past few years. The only exception was the COVID year of 2020-21 where income fell to $13.1 billion partly because of reduced tuition income (fewer international

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January 16, 2024 No Comments

Curves and Formulas

Time for a quick economics lesson. Every class in a post-secondary institution has a cost curve.  It looks something like this: Once an instructor is assigned to a class, that class has a set cost to the university regardless of how many students enroll, shown above as the Cost Curve (CC).  It’s mainly a function of the instructor’s salary and materials costs, which are very low in lecture courses, higher in laboratory courses, and highest in clinical courses.  That CC

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December 5, 2023 2 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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