The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

Category: Student Aid

Student Aid in Canada: Tectonic Shifts Ahead

The details of the Canada Apprentice Loan, announced in last year’s federal budget, are now public. It’s a straight $4000 that any apprentice can get, once per technical training period for up to five technical training periods for a total of $20,000 per apprentice. And as we predicted in our 2014 Budget Commentary, the loan is in fact going to be completely means-test free. An apprentice could be making $18/hour all year, plus about $1800/month on EI for the duration

Read More »
January 7, 2015 No Comments

Scholarships, Proximity Talks, and the PQ’s Lost Mojo

In the late 90s, Canada was still seemingly on the edge of a break-up.  But exactly 15 years ago at the Hotel Des Gouverneurs in Quebec City, that started to change, thanks to a scholarship program. Recall: in the summer of 1997, the Chretien government gave in to a long-standing demand of the Government of Quebec, and the province’s chattering classes, and handed-over powers for labour market training programs.  The silence from said chattering classes was deafening.  Partly in retaliation, Chretien decided he’d

Read More »
December 11, 2014 1 Comment

Solving the Fees Problem

So, here’s the problem: Canadian governments are mostly broke.  Even the ones that didn’t look broke a couple of months ago (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland) are now very definitely broke (especially Newfoundland).  There’s no money for PSE.  Everybody knows that. So, equally, everyone knows that the only way institutions are going to avoid a crunch is either by turning themselves into finishing schools for the Asian middle class, or by charging domestic students higher tuition fees.  No one genuinely thinks the

Read More »
December 3, 2014 No Comments

Independence Day

When should a student be considered independent of his or her parents for the purpose of calculating student assistance?  It’s a tricky question, which generates different answers in different parts of the world. Most student loan schemes require some kind of test of parental income for at least some of their clients.  In some places, it’s a way to save money – there isn’t enough to go around, so let’s prioritize the less well-off.  In other places (including Canada), it’s

Read More »
November 20, 2014 No Comments

Affordability

If I could ban one word from higher education discussions, it’s “affordability”.  It’s a word without precision, and, particularly when used as a synonym for “accessibility”, it’s downright misleading and harmful. The worst is when someone uses the raw price of a good – in this case tuition – to indicate “affordability”; as in: “tuition went up 5% last year, and that makes it less affordable”.  This is simply asinine.  When the price of milk or gas goes up, we

Read More »
November 17, 2014 3 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.

Subscribe

Search Posts

Search Publications

Social Media

Linkedin Youtube Spotify

Recent Posts

More thoughts on...