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Category: Universities

A More Productive Debate on “Differentiation”

One of the big topics over the past three years in Canada – and particularly in Ontario – has been that of “differentiation”.  The idea of differentiation as a boon to the university system essentially traces back to Adam Smith.  Just as in Smith’s hypothetical pin factory production can be increased multi-fold, by having different workers work on different aspects of pin-making, so too can a university system  be made more productive by having institutions concentrate on different aspects of

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February 26, 2014 6 Comments

The War on Small, Niche Public Universities

Governments love universities that make a niche for themselves.  “How delightful“, governments say.  “Oh, we’re so proud of you for not following the herd and trying to be just another big multi-versity.  You go, girl”. They say all of this, of course, until it comes time to actually fund them, at which point governments effectively flip small, niche universities the bird.  In practice, governments behave as though they hate small universities with a passion. There are two separate problems here.  The first has to do with the

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February 25, 2014 No Comments

Chinese Higher Education’s Take-Off

When Deng re-opened the universities, the system somehow managed to pull together a couple of hundred thousand professors, and around 600 institutions started enrolling students.  By 1980 that meant about a million students a year in mainstream universities (plus another half-million in specialized “adult higher education institutions”), and a cozy student: faculty ratio of about 4:1.  Over the next decade, to 1990, those numbers would increase to about 2 million in universities (mostly in 4-year undergraduate programs known as Benke), another million

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February 7, 2014 3 Comments

Riding Two Horses*

Here’s a home truth that you won’t see acknowledged very often: modern Canadian universities aren’t one organization; they’re two, each with different values, priorities, and procedures. The first organization is the one we’re used to thinking about.  It’s the one that acts as a pillar of the community.  It teaches the local kids, and works on local problems.  It measures its success in its ability to attract ever-brighter domestic students, and in winning national competitions for public research funds.  When

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February 5, 2014 3 Comments

The Crucible: Higher Education in the Mao/Deng Years

Chinese higher education wasn’t up to much during the Mao years.  After 12 years of war – with Japan from 1937 to 1945, and a civil war thereafter – there wasn’t a great deal left when the war was over.  Some universities relocated for the duration of hostilities, others closed and re-founded themselves in Taiwan after the Communists triumphed on the mainland.  Though the Communists oversaw a huge increase in basic schooling and literacy, higher education remained hampered by purges, famines,

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February 3, 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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