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Category: Internationalization

The Alternative to International Students

No matter where I go, people ask me “what alternative financial models are there which don’t require us to go all-in on international students?”  Not because they have anything against international students, of course: rather, they just find the increasing reliance on this source of fee income as inherently more dangerous/volatile than other sources of income (though I’m not 100% sure that’s actually true). There are two alternatives, which can be combined in various ways.  One I have discussed at

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November 2, 2022 4 Comments

Cape Breton. Yet Again.

Just a quick one today, because you all know how this story goes. The Atlantic Association of Universities, bless them, produces enrolment data every October.  Why it takes every other university in the country over a year to do the same is an utter mystery.  But whatever the reason, it gives us the earliest window into what’s going on nationally in enrolments. Here’s the skinny: Total enrolment is up 1%.  But, predictably, it’s not evenly spread across student types.  International

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November 1, 2022 No Comments

That Fifth Estate Episode

Many of you will have seen the Fifth Estate episode that aired two weeks ago, about international students in Canadian institutions and how many of them think – sometimes not without reason – they have been sold a bill of goods with respect to the quality of the education they receive.  If you haven’t already watched it, it’s here and you may want to give it a gander before continuing with this blog. Finished?  Good.  Then I’ll begin. Broadly speaking,

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October 26, 2022 4 Comments

Ontario Colleges (Yes, Again)

If you want a peek into how I spent my days, come, join with me on a quest to try to get Canadian institutional data in less than 3 years.  It’ll be fun, I promise.  It’s about Ontario Colleges, which are never not interesting. Let me show you two graphs which take us right up to the point where our national statistics agency’s data leaves off, 2019-20 (yes, really).  The first is international students as a percentage of Ontario’s total

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September 12, 2022 2 Comments

The Reckoning

I am calling it now: Canadian post-secondary institutions are very close to the end of the road on international student number growth.  It’s not because demand is going to dry up or anything like that.  There is still room for hundreds of thousands more international students if we wanted them, and probably demand to match as well.  It is simply that too many institutions have become too greedy, and they are imposing intolerable externalities on their surrounding communities.  A backlash

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May 9, 2022 1 Comment
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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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