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Category: PSE Outcomes

Beyond Co-op (Part One)

One perennial topic of interest in Canadian higher education (particularly during recessions) is the subject of Work-Integrated Learning – that is, work experience which is organized by an educational institution and which is incorporated into a student’s educational programme. Today, HESA is releasing a paper by Miriam Kramer and me on how students’ work experiences stack up in terms of learning outcomes that contain some interesting results. We asked a little over 2,100 students about a variety of work experiences:

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November 23, 2011 1 Comment

Is Higher Education Oversold?

Alex Tabarok at Marginal Revolution recently asked an interesting question that has spread quickly across the blogosphere – is college oversold? I think this question is going to get asked a lot more as the economic slowdown wears on, so it’s worth examining. Basically, Tabarok notes that U.S. enrolment in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects has been stagnant over the last couple of decades, whereas enrolment in “softer” subjects with allegedly (no data is provided) lower rates of

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November 9, 2011 1 Comment

Enough About National Goals, Already

In any discussion of Canadian post-secondary education, you know you’re about to approach an impasse when someone starts blaming some real or imagined ill on the lack of “national goals” or the absence of a federal ministry of higher education. Honestly, who cares? The lack of a Department of Education until the Carter administration didn’t stop the U.S. from creating one of the world’s great PSE systems. Our lack of one hasn’t prevented us from having world-class research funding or

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October 12, 2011 No Comments

Why is there an “S” in STEM?

Governments love to talk about STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) programs. They were given prominent space in the last Canadian federal budget, and the acronym permeates U.S. educational policy discourse. It’s conventional wisdom that increasing the number of STEM graduates is essential to economic growth. You might think that the chief purpose of the modern post-secondary institution is to churn out graduates in STEM fields – and that as a corollary, arts students are some sort of vestigial leftover

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August 31, 2011 1 Comment

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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