Category: Funding and Finances

Our 2012 Forecast

Hello, all. We’re back up and running at HESA Towers, and we’re starting the year with a list of things to look for in 2012. The #1 story of the year in Canadian higher education will almost certainly be labour unrest. The faculty strike that just ended at Brandon lasted a staggering 45 days while at McGill, the non-academic staff were on strike from September to early December. Unions appear to be getting bolshier while money is starting to become

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Comparing Support for the Social Sciences and Humanities

After writing about SSHRC a couple of weeks ago one very loyal reader requested that I elaborate on the point that the social sciences and humanities are treated well in Canada compared to other countries. I’m a sucker for loyal readers, so: I’ll say straight off that that comparing national granting council budgets is tricky because there are some significant structural differences in the way research gets funded in different countries (i.e., not all funding goes through granting councils). When

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Weak Arguments

I am a social scientist. I like the social sciences. I also like the humanities, even if I do find many people’s defense of the humanities to be shrill and weirdly ahistorical. So, naturally, I’m a fan of SSHRC. What I am not a fan of, however, is some of the drivel that passes for advocacy on SSHRC’s behalf. One argument that gets pulled out every once in awhile and which annoys me immensely is the one that says, “Social

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The Robin des Bois of Canadian Higher Education

In its budget this past spring, Jean Charest’s government announced its plans to increase tuition in Quebec by $325 per year for five years, beginning next fall. By 2016-17, the basic undergraduate tuition in Quebec will reach $3,792 for a typical, 30-credit year. While the tuition increase will keep Quebec students’ fees well below the average elsewhere in Canada, the increases still clock in at 75% over five years. Clearly there is potential for a significant impact on enrolment. So it

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The Central Canadian Jock Windfall

The other day I was flipping through public policy maven Charles Clotfelter’s new book Big Time Sports in American Universities (you can get the gist via this interview on YouTube). It reminded me to check up a bit on a subject which intrigued me a few years ago, namely the evolution of sports scholarships in Canadian universities. Fifteen years ago, Canadian athletic scholarships were still both small and rare: even in 2001-02, CIS schools were distributing just $3.4 million in scholarships

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