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Category: Institutions

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

Rankings Indigestion

The easiest knock on rankings like those produced by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, is that they only measure research, and that universities are about much more than just research. That’s absolutely true, of course, but to my mind it also reflects a general unwillingness to come to grips with what an odd, hybrid of an organization higher education really is. Go back two hundred years and universities were nearly irrelevant as institutions. The decline of the church had robbed the

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November 29, 2011 No Comments

The New AUCC

Reading through a couple of recent AUCC initiatives – notably: the “five commitments”and its new brochure on the value of universities, it occurred to me how much AUCC’s focus seems to have changed in the last few years. Though it hasn’t really been remarked upon, there seems to be a slow but dramatic shift in the way higher education lobbying occurs in Ottawa. As late as 2000, AUCC still had an unrivalled lobbying presence in Ottawa. Individual institutions were starting

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November 22, 2011 No Comments

Kids in the House

One of the big memes in student affairs these days is the increasing dependence of students on their parents. Sometimes, this is blamed on parents’ over-protectiveness, sometimes on students’ reluctance to grow up, but regardless, it seems a point of general agreement. We can’t say much about long-term trends, but thanks to our regular CanEd Student Research Panel, we can provide a more nuanced portrait of these students. A few months ago, we asked panel members who lived at home

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November 17, 2011 No Comments

Learning from the Airline Industry

Every once in awhile it’s worth looking at other industries to see what you can learn from them and apply it to your own. In the case of higher education, I think it is time to look at airlines. The obvious similarity here has to do with the difficulties both experience in branding. Airlines all deliver essentially the same experience – you get to the airport, go through security, pick a seat on one flying cigar tube and a few hours later

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November 14, 2011 1 Comment

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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