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Category: Institutions

A New Set of International Rankings (I)

Times Higher Education (THE) is putting out its brand spanking new “Impact Rankings” tomorrow morning in North America (it’s an evening launch at an event in Korea but timed to hit the papers at lunch time in Europe and for the early news cycle over here).  Today, I want to go through a little bit of background to these new rankings: tomorrow (Wednesday), the blog will be delayed a few hours so I can get you some analysis of the

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April 2, 2019 No Comments

Best Higher Ed Scandal of the Year

The following statement was issued in a Massachusetts courtroom yesterday morning. Dozens of individuals involved in a nationwide conspiracy that facilitated cheating on college entrance exams and the admission of students to elite universities as purported athletic recruits were arrested by federal agents in multiple states and charged in documents unsealed on March 12, 2019, in federal court in Boston. Athletic coaches from Yale, Stanford, USC, Wake Forest and Georgetown, among others, are implicated, as well as parents and exam

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March 13, 2019 1 Comment

How Equitable Can We Get?

Last month, the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) published a paper entitled “Redefining Access to Postsecondary Education”.  It raises a number of interesting questions about access in Ontario (which apply to Canada generally), so it’s worth examination. Stripped to the basics, the document lays out the following point (quoted from the Executive summary) that Ontario funding and student aid policies “have resulted in a dramatic increase in overall enrolment at Ontario’s colleges and universities over the last two

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March 7, 2019 No Comments

New Theories on Skills and Growth

One of the things post-secondary education does poorly is questioning its orthodoxies, particularly when it comes to the value of what it is the sector produces.  I’m talking in particular about graduate skills.  I mean, forget about the possibility that we could measure outcomes and relate them to specific skills and change curricula on that basis – that’s crazy talk (in universities, anyway).  I mean just the basic question: do skills matter?  This sounds like heresy, but it’s a serious

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March 1, 2019 No Comments

The “Marketization” Critique

If you pay attention to the train wreck that is higher education policy in the UK, you will no doubt quickly come across claims that “marketization” is to blame.  Skyrocketing vice-chancellor’s (i.e. President’s) salaries?  Marketization at work.  Student Mental Health pressure?  Also marketization.  Universities doing dodgy property deals?  You bet that’s marketization. When one phenomenon gets blamed for literally everything that goes wrong, my spidey senses start tingling.  What is this “marketization” exactly?  How do we know it is to blame for everything? 

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February 27, 2019 1 Comment
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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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