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Category: Student Aid

Bravo, New Brunswick

Readers may remember that about this time last year, I was giving the Government of New Brunswick a bit of stick for a botched student aid roll-out. Today I am pleased to give credit where it is due, and congratulate the folks in Fredericton for fixing the problem and developing a much better student aid system. Let’s go back 12 months to pick up the story.  In February 2016, the Ontario government had come up with a fabulous new system which

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March 2, 2017 No Comments

Manitoba’s Golden Opportunity

It’s tough to be in government these days: prolonged slow growth means it’s difficult to keep increasing spending at a rate at which citizens have become accustomed.  Instead, with rising costs and little appetite to raise taxes or fees, governing often seems to be one long exercise in nickel-and-diming.  Higher education – in most of Canada at least – has felt some of this, but in truth has been insulated more than most other parts of the public service. But

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February 2, 2017 5 Comments

American Higher Education Under Trump

Tomorrow, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States (actually, the 44th person to be President: Grover Cleveland’s two non-consecutive terms screw up the count).  What does this mean for higher education? First off, let’s recollect that where higher education is concerned, the US, like Canada, is a federation where the main decisions about funding public education are made at the state level. Decreased state investment in institutions and consequent rises in tuition have

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January 19, 2017 No Comments

Does Student Debt Matter If You’re Not Going to Pay It Back?

You can accumulate one hell of a lot of debt these days in the UK.  Just in an undergraduate degree, fees are ‎£9,000 per year plus you can get another ‎£10,702 in maintenance loans per year of you’re studying in London.  Over a three-year degree that’s ‎£59,106 or a tad over $100,000 (yes, really). So, at face value one can understand the spate of stories coming out of the UK these days talking about how their massive debt loads are

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December 9, 2016 1 Comment

Important Changes to Canada Student Loans

The last federal budget made one large signal improvement to student assistance: the abolition of the education tax credit, and the re-investment of that money into an improved Canada Student Grant. Less remarked upon was a promise to simplify need assessment. Now the details of that effort are emerging, and they are pretty interesting. The change has to do with the student contribution rules. In the Canadian student aid system, various forms of student income and assets are considered “resources”

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December 1, 2016 8 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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