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Category: Universities

The MOOC Conversation We Should Have (But Won’t)

In all the hype and backlash about MOOCs, it seems that we forgot to have a really important conversation about what MOOCs actually tell us about traditional higher education. The thing that freaked absolutely everybody out (some positively, some negatively) about MOOCs was the idea that a single instructor could teach tens of thousands of students around the world, simultaneously.  “Oh my God”, people panicked/enthused, “what will happen to the university once content is available freely everywhere”.  Well, not much,

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May 5, 2014 4 Comments

Canadian Students Pay Net Zero Tuition

Yesterday, we noted that Canada hands out over $10 billion to its students each year.  Of that, $6.6. billion goes to students in the form of tax credits or grants; another $700 million is spent on savings incentives of various sorts.  All told,  over 70% of the $10 billion is non-repayable. How does that compare to what students spend on tuition?  Well, this isn’t entirely straightforward.  We know from CAUBO/Statscan statistics that in 2011-12, universities collected $7.37B in fees from students.  What

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April 22, 2014 4 Comments

Rewind on Those Foley/Green Numbers

So, you may remember that last week I published this neat little graph from the National Graduates Survey, showing university and graduate incomes across all ten provinces, three years after graduation.  Note that although the numbers vary by province, the university number is always higher than the college number. Median Earnings of College and Bachelor’s Graduates Three Years After Graduation, in 2013               The super-keen among you may also remember something I wrote three

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April 16, 2014 No Comments

Coursera Continues to Confuse

The big news Monday was that Coursera, MOOC provider extraordinaire, had a bit of a re-shuffle at the top.  Founders Daphne Koller and Andre Ng, and erstwhile President Laila Ibrahim, were joined by former Yale President Rick Levin, who is now the company’s CEO.  This, needless to say, got everyone quite excited.  A Big Name Has Joined Coursera!  It must mean… well, what does it mean, exactly? Coursera is a company which – from a growth point-of-view – has two huge positives

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March 27, 2014 2 Comments

Capital!

If you’re ever bored and playing around with CAUBO data (what do you mean, “no else does that”?) you may have noticed that in 2011 there was a significant (roughly 3%) decrease in university expenditures – which is weird, because no province significantly reduced funding to universities that year, and universities never voluntarily reduce their spending.  So what the heck is going on? The quick answer is: the Knowledge Infrastructure Program (KIP) ended, and so institutions lost a nice little source of

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March 21, 2014 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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