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Category: Funding and Finances

Postcard from Alberta (2)

Yesterday, I discussed the peculiarities of Alberta’s financial reporting system for post-secondary education and how it reflects the province’s controlling approach towards post-secondary institutions (if you don’t believe me, ask anyone who’s been a senior admin at both an Albertan institution and one from another province, and see how often they get calls from Ministers and senior government officials).  Today, I want to talk about how that approach is likely to sabotage the governing United Conservative Party’s goals when it

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January 28, 2020 1 Comment

Postcard from Alberta (1)

I had the pleasure of spending a couple of days in Alberta last week, and I would spend some time writing about the ways in which Alberta higher education is structured differently from the rest of the country.  For that, I have to get into the public finance weeds. Twenty years ago, Alberta arguably had the best public service in the country (it’s still pretty good, but it’s fallen a bit).  One of the innovations they hit on as they

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January 27, 2020 1 Comment

That New Alberta Performance Funding Scheme

On Monday, the Alberta Government released some details about the Performance-Based Funding (PBF) scheme it wants to implement for next year.  Herewith, the lowdown. The Good News: It’s a performance-based funding scheme, which leapfrogs Alberta about two stages ahead of where it currently is in terms of funding planning (it is currently one of the largest jurisdictions in the world with no funding formula at all).  And it avoided copying the more bone-headed indicators that Ontario chose to use (for details

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January 23, 2020 No Comments

Questions About Alberta Data

I’m heading to Alberta for a couple of days this week, so I’ve been looking more carefully at some of what’s going on there, particularly following the MacKinnon Report on government financing.  And frankly, I’m a little perplexed at what I am seeing. Just to be clear, the Albertan government is currently on a kick to balance the budget after several years of deficits.  Nothing wrong with that.  Higher education is one of the areas they have decided is among those they

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January 20, 2020 5 Comments

Where the Living is Easy

Before Christmas, I made a bit of a fuss about the six Ontario Colleges who had made deals with private career colleges in the GTA to teach international students.  The previous provincial government had decided to shut these agreements down because they seemed to pose systemic reputation risks to Ontario colleges, but the new one decided not only to leave them alone but to allow those colleges to double down on them, ostensibly on the grounds that they all really, really

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January 14, 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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