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Category: Funding and Finances

Laurentian Blues (5) – Money & Governance

Good morning all.  Last week, in the course of writing a series on Laurentian University, I ran a feature comparing accumulated annual deficits at various Canadian universities.  I stand by what I wrote in it.  However, it has been drawn to my intention that people may have been overly influenced by the blog title (“who’s next?”) and not enough by the text itself, which was more cautious in drawing conclusions – if this is the case, I regret that.  Also, some

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February 16, 2021 6 Comments

Laurentian Blues (4) – Who is Next?

Note: since the publication of this post, Concordia University and St. Thomas University have provided responses disagreeing with the assessment of this post. Click the university names above to read their respective positions. So, the mixed metaphor I keep hearing is that Laurentian is the canary in the coal mine, and there must be other dominoes ready to fall.  And people seem to assume I know who is next.  In fact, my priors are that there are probably not any

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February 9, 2021 1 Comment

What People Are Complaining About When They Complain About Performance-Based Funding

If you are a faithful reader of this blog, you’ll know I am not a big fan of the Performance-Based Funding (PBF) systems being developed by the governments of Alberta and Ontario (though the latter is a bit less hopeless than the former).  But unlike many who oppose these initiatives, I don’t think PBF is a bad idea in principle: I’ve written quite extensively about why they’re a good idea, at least when designed correctly.  Today I want to talk about

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January 19, 2021 2 Comments

The Miracle of Ontario College Funding

Let me tell you a sad story about Ontario colleges.   In 2018-19, Ontario colleges got a huge influx of extra public money, about $120 million or so, or a bump of about 7%. I’m not exactly sure why – suspect a lot of it was money pushed out the door in the waning months of the Wynne administration.  But then times changed.  In 2019-20, government transfers to Ontario colleges fell by 10%.  And on top of that, the government slashed

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January 18, 2021 2 Comments

Ontario’s PBF System: Odds, Ends and Contradictions

Yesterday, we looked at some of the math behind Ontario’s new funding system, and how a system which is allegedly “60% performance-based funding” will at most result in about $15 million, or 0.4%, of funding re-allocated in some way.  But there are still more oddities to explore. One of my favourite foibles about this funding system is how it seems to have been constructed one element at a time, with no overall strategic intent.  For instance: the main goal of the enrolment-based

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December 3, 2020 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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