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Category: Universities

The Impact of Tax Credits

One of the many ways that Canada stands out as unusual in its financing of higher education is the degree to which its subsidies to students and families runs not through loans or grants but through tax relief.  Well over $2 billion/year goes out to students that way; for full-time university students in Canada last year, tax credits on average amounted to $2,200, or almost a third of the sticker price. But given how central tax credits are to our

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September 4, 2013 1 Comment

What The Heck Did You THINK Was Going to Happen?

I’m a bit bewildered by some of the recent commentary about declining returns to education, most notably last week’s paper from CIBC on the subject.  While the actual report was not nearly as stupid as the ream of press coverage that followed it, it still had a few howlers, and definitely lacked critical thinking. First, the howlers.  1) The returns to Bachelor’s degrees are not declining; they are, in fact, growing at a slightly slower rate than at other levels of education,

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September 3, 2013 2 Comments

Cuts at the University of Alberta

If anybody wants to know what Ontario universities are going to look like over the next couple of years, they could do worse than check out what’s going on in Edmonton. To recap: In its spring budget, the Government of Alberta cut 7% from university operating grants.  Since then, Alberta universities have been working out how to deal with this cut.  At Athabasca, it’s meant significant layoffs.  At Mount Royal it’s meant program closures.  At the University of Alberta, so

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August 19, 2013 11 Comments

One Thought to Start Your 147th Year, Canada

Some of you have noted that I am a little hard on this country of ours and its higher education system(s).  That’s a fair comment: the sense of complacency around our education system and its alleged virtues does indeed drive me absolutely mental most days and I have no qualms venting about it.  (Note to our international readers: the most important thing to know about Canada is that our national dress is fleece.  Because comfort trumps pretty much everything else. 

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July 2, 2013 No Comments

What if Higher Education Subsidies Were Transparent?

 An interesting little exercise in budget analysis: There are just under 5600 humanities professors at Canadian universities, and 7600 in the social sciences (excluding law, which is another 600 or so).  On average, these people make about $108,000/year (slightly higher in social sciences, slightly lower in humanities).  Add another 25% on that for payroll taxes, health, and pension, and the direct costs of employing these folks is about $135,000 per year.  That comes out to about $1.85 billion in total.

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June 13, 2013 14 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.

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