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Category: Institutions

What if Higher Education Subsidies Were Transparent?

 An interesting little exercise in budget analysis: There are just under 5600 humanities professors at Canadian universities, and 7600 in the social sciences (excluding law, which is another 600 or so).  On average, these people make about $108,000/year (slightly higher in social sciences, slightly lower in humanities).  Add another 25% on that for payroll taxes, health, and pension, and the direct costs of employing these folks is about $135,000 per year.  That comes out to about $1.85 billion in total.

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June 13, 2013 14 Comments

That teacher training announcement

Last week, the province of Ontario made an interesting decision regarding teacher education programs in the province. As of next year, programs will double in length (2 years instead of 1) and the intake will be halved.  The government says the extra year will mean higher quality graduates which – whether true or not – is an enormously amusing argument for the government to make so soon after former Minister Glen “3 years” Murray swore blind that degree length and

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June 11, 2013 3 Comments

Progression Through the Ranks (PTR)

So, here’s the little budget secret that everyone in higher education tries to hide: it’s called Progression Through the Ranks (PTR).  That’s the name given to the automatic raise professors and librarians get every year, simply based on seniority.  And over the next few years, as we head into genuine zero-budget-increase territory, it’s going to significantly erode institutional purchasing capacity. Come collective bargaining time, unions and administrations seem to go at it hammer-and-tongs.  “We demand a 2.5% annual pay increase!”  “No,

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May 29, 2013 1 Comment

Trying to Have it Both Ways

Everyone should check out this story from the Guardian on Tuesday, which nicely encapsulates the way universities have rhetorically boxed themselves in on the student experience. Some background: in late 2010, the UK government decided to cut operating grants to universities by 41%, and to allow tuition fees at universities in England and Wales to rise to £9,000 (+150% or so).  Even though the policy change hasn’t had a huge effect on access, students are clearly now paying a lot more for

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May 17, 2013 2 Comments

Think Big?

With all the chat recently about reducing unit costs through ever-larger instructional units (e.g. MOOCs), it occurred to me that the world already has a lot of models for this.  They just aren’t in the developed world. University World News recently carried a very interesting article regarding a new higher education master plan in Nigeria.  One of the plan’s key elements is to construct a half-dozen “mega-universities” – each with 100-150,000 students – to soak up the rising demand for higher education. 

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May 16, 2013 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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