The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

Category: Universities

Who’s More International?

We sometimes think about international higher education as being “a market”. This is not quite true: it’s actually several markets. Back in the day, international education was mostly about graduate students; specifically, at the doctoral level. Students did their “basic” education at home and then went abroad to get research experience or simply emigrate and become part of the host country’s scientific structure. Nobody sought these students for their money; to the contrary these students were usually getting paid in some

Read More »
November 24, 2016 1 Comment

Higher Salaries + Lower Workloads = More Sessionals

On Sunday night, the University of Manitoba and its faculty union hashed out a tentative deal to end a three-week strike.  No details are publicly available yet, but I think the dispute – and the likely strategies used to resolve it – are a useful way of understanding some general concepts around the economics of universities in Canada. Directly or indirectly, institutions get their operating funds from having students sit in classrooms.  Tuition fees are directly related to credit hours

Read More »
November 22, 2016 1 Comment

The European Way of Student Services

One of the delights of working in international higher education is that while higher education is pretty much isomorphic the world over, it’s not entirely so. There’s not so much variation that expertise isn’t transferable, but not so little that you can’t be learn something new by appreciating another country’s system.  One are of particular interest is student accommodations and student services. In North America we take it for granted that student services and residence are a responsibility of institutions –

Read More »
November 3, 2016 2 Comments

Scientific Journal Prices & Library Purchasing Power

Last week’s pieces on libraries generated a fair bit of comment (I get the impression librarians don’t get attention that often).  So I thought I would come back for another pass on the subject. First a couple of clarifications.  First, apparently CARL’s data for UNB includes expenditures at both campuses while the student data relates only to the Fredericton campus.  So all those per-student expenditure figures for UNB?  They need to be cut by about 20%.  Also, I think I

Read More »
November 1, 2016 1 Comment

Towards a Theory of Strategic Plans in Higher Education

I had an interesting discussion on twitter a few days ago about the nature of University strategic plans, and specifically, why they are rarely written in a manner that feels meaningful to faculty.  Having pondered it for a few days, I thought it would be worth jotting down some ideas. The university is, in most cases, a loosely-coupled organization.  For the most part, people in Fine Arts could not care less what is going on in the Faculty of Agriculture

Read More »
October 31, 2016 9 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...