The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

Category: Funding and Finances

Some Consequences of Declining Public Funding

Home truth: while total funding for higher education has increased rather substantially over the past couple of decades, an increasing proportion of this funding has come from private sources.  If anything, that trend is going to continue for the next decade, at least.  Unfortunately, our decision-making structures and mentalities are stuck in the era when institutions could count on governments to bail them out. I noticed this initially during the St. FX strike.  One of the main lines of discourse

Read More »
February 20, 2013 2 Comments

The Greek Choice

University World News ran an interesting piece the other day.  Apparently, the Greek government, as part of its continuing search for money, has devised a brilliant idea to get funds from the higher ed sector.  It’s going to close four universities, and reduce the size of the incoming class by about 30%. Well, that’s sure one way to do it.  Apparently, tuition fees weren’t considered – I’m not entirely sure why it wasn’t; it’s not as though they’re verboten in

Read More »
February 4, 2013 No Comments

American College Sports

You may have heard something last week about a new report from the Delta Cost Project, in the United States.  Typically, I’m a big fan of the Delta Cost Project, but I think this particular study misses the point. The main line of argumentation against college sports in the US is that only a few big schools actually make money on athletics; on the whole, schools lose money, which could otherwise be spent on academics.  While true, this point could

Read More »
January 24, 2013 No Comments

What Goes Up May Come Down

About six years ago now, when policymakers in Canada started to get excited about international education, many hoped that foreigners might be able to subsidize our expensive system of higher education.  I don’t mean to put too fine a point on it, but the thinking was: if the Australians could manage it, presumably so could we. To date, our results have been pretty good.  International enrolments keep rising. The money keeps on flowing, offsetting the weakness in government funding.  What

Read More »
January 18, 2013 No Comments

Why Don’t we Have More Private Higher Education?

Here’s a puzzle:  In many provinces, the law allows for the establishment of new, private, degree-granting institutions.  So why don’t they do it? Why don’t disaffected lawyers set up a cut-price law school in central Toronto to compete against the expensive products offered by U of T and Osgoode?   Why doesn’t a brand-name private secondary institution, like the Bishop Strachan School, create its own liberal arts college, a la Bryn Mawr or Wellesley? In Canada, private higher education is often thought

Read More »
January 16, 2013 1 Comment

One Thought to Start Your Day

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.

Subscribe

Search Posts

Search Publications

Social Media

Linkedin Youtube Spotify

Recent Posts

More thoughts on...