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Category: Funding and Finances

Differentiating University Missions (Part Two)

One of the things that distinguishes Canadian universities from those virtually anywhere else is the unparalleled freedom they have to determine their own mission. In most countries – including our neighbours to the south, I should underline – the final say over public institutions belongs with government. As one of our American-born staffers once explained to a compatriot “the difference is that up here, public universities get funding from the government, and then they tell government to kiss off.” Our

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September 27, 2011 1 Comment

Data Point of the Week: StatsCan Gets it Wrong in the EAG

So, as noted yesterday, the OECD’s Education at a Glance (EAG) statfest – all 495 pages of it – was just released. Now it’s our turn to dissect some of what’s in there. Of most immediate interest was chart B5.3, which shows the relative size of public subsidies for higher education as a percentage of public expenditures on education. It’s an odd measure, because having a high percentage could mean either that a country has very high subsidies (e.g., Norway, Sweden) or very low public expenditures (e.g.,

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September 14, 2011 No Comments

A (Not Very Good) Sign of Things to Come

So, Dalton McGuinty has released the Ontario Liberal Party’s platform and its associated costing document. What’s drawn everyone’s attention so far is this idea of “30% tuition rebates” – understandably so since the cost of the this one is almost a third of all new proposed spending (the miserly sums are a nod towards the fact that the province is essentially broke and can’t afford any new spending).  I’ll go into more depth about these rebates tomorrow in my Globe blog, globecampus.tumblr.com; suffice for the

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September 6, 2011 1 Comment

Strategy Matters

Here’s a key truth to understanding the future of academia: the western world hit “Peak Higher Education” sometime in 2009. That is to say, across the OECD, we are unlikely to see public funding at 2009 levels ever again. Between the current global financial crisis and its associated fiscal problems, and the challenges associated with aging societies, there will not be a return to prior levels of public support for higher education for decades to come. Now peak higher education

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September 1, 2011 No Comments

Data Point of the Week: Comparing Academic Salaries

If there’s one subject we write about that gets people riled up, it’s academic salaries in Canada and the U.S. It’s a complicated issue – so let’s look at concrete examples at three of the better-paying Canadian institutions (Trent, Calgary and McMaster) and three prestigious American universities (Dartmouth, Washington and Berkeley). If you just look at baseline salaries for two sets of institutions, you see some pretty big differences as shown in Figure 1, below. The gap is bigger for

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August 24, 2011 No Comments

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.

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