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Category: Politics

Skills Shortages (Part 2)

As I noted yesterday, much of the talk about skills shortages in Canada is data-free, and factually-challenged.  What, for instance, are we to make of claims that we have a huge shortage of people in the construction trades, when even a simple look at Labour Force Survey data tells a very different story? Unemployment by Industry, 2007-2012               Yeah, that’s right: workers in the social sciences, education, and government fields (mostly university graduates) have

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March 20, 2013 2 Comments

Skills Shortages (Part 1)

OK, apparently this week I’m going to have to talk about skills shortages, because it seems that people in Ottawa have LOST THEIR EVER-LOVING MINDS on the subject. The basics of the policy discussion are as follows: Canada currently has an unemployment rate of about 7.5%, which is deemed too high.  Despite there being roughly 6 unemployed people for every job vacancy, there are some jobs which are going unfilled because of skills shortages.  This, everyone can probably agree, is

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March 19, 2013 11 Comments

The New Normal: Students First, Institutions Last

There’s a new dynamic at work in Canadian higher education.  And it should scare the bejesus out of everyone who cares about the sector. Consider the following: In Alberta, where the Conservative Government last week cut operating budgets by nearly 7%, and institutions have been told to forget about offsetting through tuition fees, the student aid budget rose by almost a quarter. In Ontario, the Liberal Government won re-election last year on a platform of no more money to institutions

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March 14, 2013 2 Comments

The Return of Income-Contingency

The idea of income-contingent repayment (ICR) of student loans has been with us for a few decades now.  In 1945, Milton Friedman advocated something like an ICR loan as a way of reducing the risk associated with educational investment.  In 1971, nobel-prize winner, James Tobin, developed an ICR for use at Yale University.  The first national-level ICR was in Australia, which introduced its Higher Education Contribution Scheme in 1988; the idea quickly spread to New Zealand, the UK, and Sweden.

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March 8, 2013 No Comments

The Justin Trudeau Effect

As you know, we at HESA have a national panel of students with whom we frequently commune to check the pulse of the student body.   Usually, we use this to look at students’ educational experiences.  Occasionally, though, we also use it to look at broader social and political issues.  And today, we’d like to show you what Canadian students really think of Justin Trudeau. Why Trudeau? Well, part of the man’s narrative is that he connects with the young.  His

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February 22, 2013 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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