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Category: Government

That Fiscal Sustainability Report

A few weeks ago, the Parliamentary Budget Office put out a report (available here) on the sustainability of public finances.  It’s an excellent little report, with some key implications for post-secondary institutions across the country.  Today, I will discuss  two points in particular. The first key point has to do with the long-term sustainability of the finances of each level of government.  Though this is poorly understood, the two levels of government have i) different sources of revenue and ii) different

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October 23, 2018 No Comments

History of Canadian PSE Part VI (to 2003)

The Chretien era – roughly 1994 to 2003 – deserves to be remembered as a time of tremendous change in Canadian post-secondary education.  Or, as an enormous, stomach-churning, roller-coaster.  And though it is mighty odd that a federal politician defined an era in a field of what is essentially provincial, the record is clear. The first defining moment was the fabled 1995 Budget (for those of you to young to remember it, go read the best journalistic account of this

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October 12, 2018 1 Comment

History of Canadian PSE Part V (to 1993)

The economic and fiscal history of Canada from the early 70s to the mid-90s is one long, bad disaster movie (the Cassandra Crossing, say).  Unemployment went over 6% in 1974 and didn’t come back down to that level until 2008.  For nearly all of the 1980s, it was over 8% and from 1982 to 1994 it was over 10% half the time.  The Keynesian medicine that was supposed to get us out of such messes simply did not work because

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October 11, 2018 1 Comment

History of Canadian PSE Part IV (to 1974)

Morning all.  Since people seem to like these history pieces so much, I’ve decided to get us mostly caught up to the present day in one go.  Hope you enjoy! The period roughly from 1959 to the oil crisis of 1973-74 is rightly thought of as a Golden Age for higher education in Canada, much as it is in the United States.  Universities ballooned in size and gradually became more research-intensive.  A new class of institutions, community colleges, were added

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October 10, 2018 1 Comment

History of Canadian PSE Part III (to 1959)

During the war years, post-secondary education was essentially on hold.  But immediately afterwards, in the period from 1945-1960, there were some major developments.  The first was dealing with a major surge in enrolments due to returning veterans.  In 1944-45, full-time enrolment was 38,516, slightly below where it was in 1938.   Two years later, swollen by several cohorts of military veterans taking advantage of a post-war benefits program, it was 76,237.  By 1950 those numbers were starting to fall again –

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October 5, 2018 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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