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Category: Colleges and Polytechnics

The Changing Face of Vocational Training

Canada’s community colleges are often thought of as places to learn “vocational” skills. But what counts as a “vocational” skill these days doesn’t always line up with popular perceptions. One area in which this is particularly true is with respect to the trades. My associate Lori McElroy has been doing some interesting work in this respect which I think is worth sharing. When we think of colleges and trades, we often think of a lot of programs that are not

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March 5, 2012 2 Comments

A Very Odd Employment “Study”

Many of you will have seen a Toronto Star story last week about a new report from the Ontario government indicating that in the wake of the recession, the provincial economy was creating more new jobs for college grads and apprentices than for university graduates.  Cue blather about how technology and the recession are radically changing the labour market, etc. Did anyone else find it odd that the Star never named the study?  I still haven’t been able to locate an actual

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January 23, 2012 4 Comments

College Tuition: More than you Think

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single student in possession of a modest fortune pursues studies at college, not university. If it is so, it is because of another truth universally acknowledged: that college is cheaper than university. Or is it? While Statistics Canada does a bang-up job collecting university tuition and fee data, weighting them carefully by enrolment patterns and reporting averages by province, level and discipline, no such mechanism exists for college studies. In fairness, the

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December 2, 2011 1 Comment

The Trouble with Sniping

Much of the HESA staff was in Fredericton last week at the annual meeting of the Canadian Institutional Research and Planning Association where, as usual, a good and informative time was had by all (hat tip to the CIRPA organizing committee). But something happened there which bothered me quite a bit: namely, a keynote address in which ACCC President Jim Knight began taking gratuitous potshots at the university sector. I’ve been wondering ever since if this was just an off-night

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October 31, 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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