Category: Internationalization

Why Everyone Loves International Students (Part 1)

A nice simple post today: why universities are going bananas for international students. The first figure shows undergraduate tuition fees for international students in each province.  They range from a little under $10,000 in Newfoundland, to just over $25,000 in PEI.  The national average for this period is $18,840; in Ontario it is $23,000. International Undergraduate Tuition Fees by Province, 2012, in $2013               What’s more, fees for international students have been going up

Read More »

Canadian Higher Ed Exceptionalism, Part 1 (An Occasional Series)

For awhile now, I’ve been writing about other national systems of higher education in our, “Better Know a Higher Ed System” series, in part to throw Canada’s own policy system into sharp relief. But sometimes it’s better to look at some things a bit more directly, so today I want to start exploring some areas where Canada really is an exception, globally.  And there’s nowhere we stick out more than in the way we admit students to university. There are

Read More »

When the Times Higher Education Rankings Fail The Fall-Down-Laughing Test

You may have noted the gradual proliferation of rankings at the Times Higher Education over the last few years.  First the World University Rankings, then the World Reputation Rankings (a recycling of reputation survey data from the World Rankings), then the “100 under 50” (World Rankings, restricted to institutions founded since the early 60s, with a methodological twist to make the results less ridiculous), then the “BRICS Rankings” (World Rankings results, with developed countries excluded, and similar methodological twists). Between actual

Read More »

Canada’s International Education Strategy – How Did It Get So Bad?

When our Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD – not DFAIT as I said a few days ago; sorry) delivers something as bad as our new International Education Strategy, an inquest is in order.  But since self-reflection isn’t exactly an abundant resource in Ottawa at the best of times, it’s an inquest we’re going to have to undertake ourselves. Let’s start with the document’s basic failures: It’s not a strategy by any reasonable definition; It effectively ignores the

Read More »

International Education Strategies – How Others Do It

By now, a lot of you will have read – either on our Blog or at the Globe and Mail – my rant about the new International Education Strategy, released last week by the Government  of Canada.  A number of people said they agreed with me, but wanted to know what I would have recommended in its place.  I won’t do that (that’s the stuff I charge for, folks); instead, I want to contrast emerging international education strategies elsewhere, with our own. Take

Read More »