The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

Category: Policy

That Was the Quarter That Was, Spring 2025

What’s been going on around the world since the end of March, you ask?  Well, unsurprisingly, the biggest stories have come from the United States.  There are in effect four fronts to the Trump administration’s attacks on the world of higher education.  First of all, the government’s new budget is going to reduce student eligibility for student loans and grants, meaning there will be less opportunity available to American students.  Second, the budget also proposes to radically slash the budgets of the

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June 10, 2025 1 Comment

Cut, Coerce, Control: What Trump Is Doing to U.S. Universities

The single biggest story in higher education for the first six months of this year, without a doubt, has been the Trump administration’s remarkable assault on science and universities. Arguably it’s the largest state-led assault on higher education institutions anywhere in the world since Mao and the cultural revolution. Billions of dollars already legally allocated to institutions have been stripped from them mainly, but not exclusively through the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Billions more are

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June 5, 2025 No Comments

Code Red on University Autonomy

There is no aspect of university autonomy that is more fundamental – in the British Commonwealth at least — than the right of each institution to select which students it chooses to admit. Along with financial autonomy, staffing autonomy, and financial autonomy (that last one being under increasing pressure these days), the right of institutions to choose which students to teach is fundamental to the Canadian higher education system. At no time in Canadian history has a government ever tried

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June 3, 2025 1 Comment

Incremental Change or System Overhaul? An Update on Higher Ed Reform in NZ with Roger Smyth

In some countries, higher education policy just seems to sit still for decades. In others, hyperactivity is a more normal state. Today we’re looking at the 2020s poster child for higher education hyperactivity. It’s not the usual suspects, the UK or Australia, it’s little New Zealand where we’re making our fourth stop on this podcast in just over two and a half years. When last we were in Wellington, we talked to Chris Whelan from Universities New Zealand about university

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May 22, 2025 No Comments

HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (May 16, 2025)

Spotlight Happy Friday to all readers,  This AI blog will be the last of the current academic semester, before we take a bit of a break until the next academic year. It will also be a bit of a longer one, to properly wrap the year… So sit comfortably and enjoy the ride! Last month, we hosted a virtual AI Roundtable to reflect on learnings from AI-CADEMY, discuss remaining challenges, and try to identify concrete steps for institutions to consider

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May 16, 2025 No Comments

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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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