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Category: Institutions

The Making of the Modern University

I have spent a godawful amount of time on planes this week, going to Malawi and back for a meeting concerning the African Centres of Excellence project.  It’s given me a lot of time to catch up on reading (two recommendations for African fiction: The Grub Hunter by Amir Tag Elser is good, but Woman of the Ashes by Mia Couto is great).  But one book in particular I thought I should mention to y’all is The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the

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November 22, 2019 1 Comment

Ontario Doubles Down on Dodgy Colleges

Remember about a month ago when I noted how several Ontario colleges now had international student numbers above 50% of total enrolment?  And about how in some cases this was being done by small town colleges establishing “partnerships” with private vocational colleges in the Greater Toronto Area?  How they were effectively warehousing international students at these locations, charging them full tuition, and paying the private college to teach some allegedly bespoke curriculum while pocketing the difference? Two pieces of news.

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November 18, 2019 2 Comments

Superstar Theory and Why Higher Education is Different

I spent part of this weekend reading Rockonomics: A Backstage Tour of What the Music Industry Can Teach Us About Economics and Life, by the late Princeton Economist Alan Krueger (whose work on higher education I highlighted here when he died by suicide earlier this year).  It’s not a bad little book, part inside-baseball on the music industry, part using examples from the music industry to explain certain features of the wider economy.  But one chapter in particular got me thinking

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November 4, 2019 1 Comment

Statscan on College Degrees and International Students

What with all the excitement over back-to-school and the federal election, I have been a bit remiss in keeping up with news from Statistics Canada.  Which is unfortunate, because One Thought’s favourite Stastcan analyst, Marc Frenette, had two papers out in September. They are well worth a quick look. The first paper, Obtaining a Bachelor’s Degree from a Community College: Earnings Outlook and Prospects for Graduates, was released on September 9th.  In the five provinces west of Quebec, it has been the

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October 15, 2019 No Comments

International Students as a Labour Issue

I spent part of this week at College of the North Atlantic – Qatar in Doha.  Having had the pleasure of visiting in 2008, it was fascinating to see the evolution of the organization, particularly now that the institution is starting to pass from Canadian to Qatari control. One of the things we talked about quite a bit in the various sessions I attended and/or ran was the issue of delivering a Canadian curriculum to students whose secondary education was

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October 9, 2019 2 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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