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Category: Government

Really? You Think? (PBO’s Supercluster Critique)

On Tuesday, the Parliamentary Budget Office released a sharply critical paper concerning the federal government’s Superclusters project, basically saying, that a) the projects are behind schedule and b) most of the numbers used to justify the project in terms of net benefits and new jobs were utter nonsense. It’s actually not that interesting a report.  Once you take out the executive summary and the references it’s six pages long with a lot of white space.  The broad strokes of the criticism are nothing new

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October 8, 2020 1 Comment

Student Loans and Income Tax Systems

Last week, I blogged about my disappointment with the Throne Speech.  However, I left out one really promising thing; namely, the idea that it would make possible free, automatic tax filing for simple returns to ensure citizens receive the benefits they need.  This is good, but in some ways insufficiently ambitions.  They should go further and fully modernize the system to make possible the collection of loans through the income tax system and thus make possible a more fully income-contingent loan

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October 5, 2020 3 Comments

Fall 2020 International Round Up: England

This week, I’ll look at news from around the world of higher education.  I’ll skip the US because regular media coverage of the ongoing disaster seems adequate.  Instead, let’s start in the United Kingdom, and specifically in England. Term is just starting over there, so we have yet to see any US-style nightmares, but that’s definitely in the cards.  As far as I can tell, the re-start plan is closer to the US than to Canada’s: less than 100% in-person

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September 21, 2020 No Comments

Micro-credentials Need to be More than Gimmicks

If you’re one of those unfortunate people who follows the federal lobbying scene, you’ll have noticed that all of the PSE stakeholder groups, one way or another, are currently pitching micro-credentials to the feds either as “a contribution” PSE institutions are making to skills acquisition in the country (CICan) or as something the government should pay for by tacking on some kind of voucher to the CERB (Universities Canada, U15, and Polytechnics Canada).  I have three reactions to this. First,

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September 14, 2020 3 Comments

New Brunswick Election 2020

Next Monday, New Brunswick will go to the polls in the first of two likely provincial elections in this academic year (Saskatchewan looks set for October; BC could conceivably go early in the new year, but could also go the full four years and vote in fall 2021).  So, let’s take a look at what the parties are saying. Let’s start with the People’s Alliance, which is basically the old Confederation of Regions why-do-the-frenchies-get-so-much-attention coalition with a little bit of Ross

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September 10, 2020 No 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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