The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

Category: Podcast

The Half-Time Show: Six Months of Global Higher Education

Hello, and welcome to the World of Higher Education podcast. I’m Tiffany MacLennan, and I’m your host for today’s episode. At the end of last year, HESA released the first ever World of Higher Education — Year in Review report, taking stock of the biggest stories and trends shaping higher education around the globe. Now we’re six months into 2026, and we’re checking back in. Joining me today is Alex Usher for a midyear halftime show on global higher education.

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June 11, 2026 No Comments

“Not Even as a Doorman”: Politics and Universities in Colombia

Colombia is one of the world’s most interesting higher education systems. With a roughly equal mix of public and private provision, it has long had to contend with issues like quality assurance and student assistance. And as a developing country, it’s always needed to balance the desire to expand its higher education system with the many competing demands on public funds. Colombia’s also in the midst of a very contentious election. Last weekend, just after this podcast was recorded, the

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June 4, 2026 No Comments

How China Built a Higher Education Superpower

It’s hard to think of a higher education system that has changed more dramatically over the past half-century than China’s. In the space of just two generations, the country’s gone from the chaos of the Cultural Revolution to building one of the world’s largest and most influential university systems, complete with world-class research institutions and mass participation. It’s achieved all this while, at the same time, working with a system and institutional culture that’s quite different from that of most

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May 28, 2026 No Comments

The Knowledge Coalition

The Netherlands has one of the most knowledge-intensive economies not just in Europe, but in the entire world. Despite its small size, it has many world-class universities, a remarkably collaborative research culture, deep ties between academia and industry — basically everything you’d want to stay at the forefront of the global economy. And yet, the Netherlands has not been immune to the factors that have hampered the drive for innovation in many other countries, most notably lack of funds and

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May 21, 2026 No Comments

How IDP Sees the Next Era of International Education

Student mobility is big business. Behind the process of getting students to apply to and then attend a university or college thousands of miles away from home is an industry that’s worth billions of dollars a year. And one of the OGs of that industry is a company called IDP, which grew out of an Australian government scheme beginning in 1969, and which for the first 37 years of its existence was owned by a consortium of Australian universities. Over

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May 14, 2026 No 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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