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Category: Students

“Xenophobia”

Here’s a new one: the Canadian Federation of Students has decided, apparently, that charging international students higher tuition fees is “xenophobic”.  No, really, they have.  This is possibly the dumbest idea in Canadian higher education since the one about OSAP “profiting” from students.   But as we’ve seen all too often in the past year or two, stupidity is no barrier to popularity where political ideas are concerned.  So: let’s get down to debunking this. The point that CFS – and

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February 6, 2017 1 Comment

Four Megatrends in International Higher Education: Massification

A few months ago I was asked to give a presentation about my thoughts on the “big trends” affecting international education. I thought it might be worth setting some of these thoughts to paper (so to speak), and so, every Friday for the next few weeks I’ll be looking one major trend in internationalization, and exploring its impact on Canadian PSE. The first and most important mega-trend is the fact that all over the world, participation in higher education is

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February 3, 2017 1 Comment

Two (Relatively) Good News Studies

A quick summary of two studies that came out this week which everyone should know about. Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) On Tuesday, the results for the 2015 PISA tests were released.  PISA is, of course, that multi-country assessment of 15 year-olds in math, science and reading which takes place every three years and is managed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).  PISA is not a test of curriculum knowledge (in an international context that would

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December 7, 2016 1 Comment

Canadian Enrollment Data, 2014-15

Statistics Canada published the 2014-15 enrollment data last week and I thought I would give you a bit of an overview.  The data is based on snapshots of enrollment taken in the fall, so we’re talking a 24-month lag here (most other OECD countries can do this in 12-18 months), but this is Statscan so just be glad you’re getting any data at all. The headline news is that enrollment in 2014-15 was up – barely – from 2.048 million

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November 28, 2016 3 Comments

Who’s More International?

We sometimes think about international higher education as being “a market”. This is not quite true: it’s actually several markets. Back in the day, international education was mostly about graduate students; specifically, at the doctoral level. Students did their “basic” education at home and then went abroad to get research experience or simply emigrate and become part of the host country’s scientific structure. Nobody sought these students for their money; to the contrary these students were usually getting paid in some

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November 24, 2016 1 Comment

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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