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Category: Politics

BC Election Manifesto Analysis 2026

I shouldn’t have to write this blog. This Saturday’s provincial election is completely unnecessary. But we’re having it anyways because the galaxy-brains around Premier Dave Eby couldn’t figure out in time that a catastrophically divided opposition might just become less catastrophically divided if faced with the threat of an imminent election.  Anyways.  This is not a good election for post-secondary education. Maybe not quite the worst I’ve ever seen in my fifteen-odd years of doing this, but it’s close. I’ll

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October 21, 2026 No Comments

New Zealand’s Higher Education Crossroads

As I think I’ve mentioned before, New Zealand has one of the most fascinating higher education policy scenes anywhere in the world. Hardly a year goes by where they aren’t making huge changes to research policy, tuition fees, student aid, or international student rules. Must be exhausting to live there. In any event, all this policy hyperactivity means this podcast often returns to New Zealand to see exactly what’s going on. And with the election coming up next month, we

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October 15, 2026 No Comments

British Columbia in a Nutshell (2026)

Morning all. A few years ago, I did a series of pieces on provincial higher education systems (for example, back here). I thought I would return to these five or so years later to see what has changed.  I’ll be running these periodically over the next eight months or so, but I thought I would start today with BC – where there is a provincial election in a few days’ time – and head east from there. So, British Columbia.

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October 14, 2026 2 Comments

The Contemptible OSAP Cover-Up

If you have been paying only casual attention to the Ontario Student Assistance file over the past few months and seen headlines like this one from July, where the province suspended several private colleges from the program, and this one from last week, where the province sicced the Ontario Provincial Police on unnamed private colleges and suspended all private institutions from receiving OSAP funding, you might be under the impression that the Ontario government is very serious about protecting the

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October 13, 2026 No Comments

The AfD and German Higher Education

In many ways, Germany seems like a higher education paradise. Sure, the funding might not be as generous as elsewhere and career progression can be problematic—but basically, academic freedom is highly prized, as are continental connections across Europe, and policymaking within the system is highly consensual. You can’t have everything, but that’s quite a lot. But as Germans are discovering, consensual decision-making only works if everyone agrees to the ground rules. And in recent years, a new political force has

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October 8, 2026 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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