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Category: Politics

Some Consequences of Declining Public Funding

Home truth: while total funding for higher education has increased rather substantially over the past couple of decades, an increasing proportion of this funding has come from private sources.  If anything, that trend is going to continue for the next decade, at least.  Unfortunately, our decision-making structures and mentalities are stuck in the era when institutions could count on governments to bail them out. I noticed this initially during the St. FX strike.  One of the main lines of discourse

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February 20, 2013 2 Comments

That Conservative White Paper

On Tuesday, the Ontario Conservatives released a “white paper” on Higher Education.  It’s an extraordinary document, by far the most detailed vision for PSE ever released by a Canadian political party.  Everyone in higher education should read it, even if they aren’t likely to enjoy it much. Much of the paper revolves around the notion of reducing the cost of delivery of higher education.  For that reason, it liberally raids the ideas of Ian Clark et. al on teaching faculty, as

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February 14, 2013 1 Comment

The Greek Choice

University World News ran an interesting piece the other day.  Apparently, the Greek government, as part of its continuing search for money, has devised a brilliant idea to get funds from the higher ed sector.  It’s going to close four universities, and reduce the size of the incoming class by about 30%. Well, that’s sure one way to do it.  Apparently, tuition fees weren’t considered – I’m not entirely sure why it wasn’t; it’s not as though they’re verboten in

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February 4, 2013 No Comments

This Should Be Interesting

So, I see that the Government of Canada is going to have-a-go at designating Canadian institutions for their suitability to accept foreign students, and deny entry visas to students who wish to study at non-designated institutions.  Having watched this process unfold in the student loans arena for the past twenty years, or so, I can only say, “good luck with that”. Designation isn’t a new thing in Ottawa.  The HRDC spent the better part of a decade trying to get a

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January 29, 2013 No Comments

The Data Gap

Some of my Ottawa elves tell me that government officials – including the PMO – are starting to get frustrated by the lack of good data in higher education.  I’m not surprised.  Consider: We’re in one of those lull periods, between rounds of the National Graduate Survey (NGS).  The last one came out in late-2008 and looked at the experiences of 2005 grads in 2007, and the next one isn’t due out for another year or so.  Those who have

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January 23, 2013 2 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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