The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

Category: Institutions

Financing Canadian Universities: A Curious Story (Part 1)

if you pay attention to discussions of higher education funding, one of the memes that inevitably pops up revolves around the notion that higher education has been under some brutal, neo-liberal assault since… well, I’m not sure, but probably since 1995 at least, and everything is being defunded, laid on the backs of students, it’s the end of civilization, dark ages ahead, etc., etc. Problem is, this yarn is utterly at odds with the data, which tells a very different

Read More »
September 9, 2013 2 Comments

Grants and Net Prices

Yesterday, we saw how tax credits lowered net prices by refunding students (or their families) roughly one out of every three dollars spent on tuition.  But that’s not the whole story, because there are a lot of university students who also get some form of non-repayable assistance (i.e. grants); for them, tuition is even lower. Let’s start with Quebec, where net tuition after tax expenditures is a mere $1,555.  Data from the latest Aide Financiere aux Etudes annual report, adjusted for known changes

Read More »
September 6, 2013 6 Comments

The Impact of Tax Credits

One of the many ways that Canada stands out as unusual in its financing of higher education is the degree to which its subsidies to students and families runs not through loans or grants but through tax relief.  Well over $2 billion/year goes out to students that way; for full-time university students in Canada last year, tax credits on average amounted to $2,200, or almost a third of the sticker price. But given how central tax credits are to our

Read More »
September 4, 2013 1 Comment

What The Heck Did You THINK Was Going to Happen?

I’m a bit bewildered by some of the recent commentary about declining returns to education, most notably last week’s paper from CIBC on the subject.  While the actual report was not nearly as stupid as the ream of press coverage that followed it, it still had a few howlers, and definitely lacked critical thinking. First, the howlers.  1) The returns to Bachelor’s degrees are not declining; they are, in fact, growing at a slightly slower rate than at other levels of education,

Read More »
September 3, 2013 2 Comments

Cuts at the University of Alberta

If anybody wants to know what Ontario universities are going to look like over the next couple of years, they could do worse than check out what’s going on in Edmonton. To recap: In its spring budget, the Government of Alberta cut 7% from university operating grants.  Since then, Alberta universities have been working out how to deal with this cut.  At Athabasca, it’s meant significant layoffs.  At Mount Royal it’s meant program closures.  At the University of Alberta, so

Read More »
August 19, 2013 11 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.

Subscribe

Search Posts

Search Publications

Social Media

Linkedin Youtube Spotify

Recent Posts

More thoughts on...