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Category: Tuition

Why Can’t We Just Means-Test Tuition?

A couple of weeks ago, I had an exchange with a colleague who couldn’t figure out why tuition wasn’t means-tested.  It just makes sense, he said: make the rich kids pay lots of tuition, and make the poor kids pay very little. I argued that it was means-tested.  If you didn’t have means, you’d get a grant, which would reduce tuition (though I allowed that this was done a lot less effectively than it could be, given how poor our

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February 20, 2014 2 Comments

Free University and We Don’t Even Know It

I’ve long believed that post-secondary education should be free for bright, poor kids.  And although there’s room for differences over what constitutes “poor” and “bright” (I’ve got a strict-ish definition of the former, less so the latter), it seems to me that this is a sentiment with which most people agree. But here’s the thing: in actual fact, there are an awful lot of bright poor kids already going to university for free, and nobody seems to notice.  The problem

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February 19, 2014 2 Comments

Karl Marx Talks Tuition with a Young Progressive Thing

Karl Marx: Jenny… Jenny… there’s a kid at the door… Jenny?  Oh all right, I’ll get it myself <opens door> Young Progressive Thing: Hi there, Mr. Marx!  I’m an idealistic Young Progressive Thing.  Want to sign this petition from the Canadian Federation of Students and the Carré Rouge types to make tuition free? KM: (stares bemusedly).  Why on earth would I want to do that? YPT: (startled). Well, it’s about helping the poor.  The workers.  You’re into that, aren’t you,

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January 21, 2014 1 Comment

Some Free Advice for the Parti Quebecois

So I see that the Government of Quebec, far from hitting their zero deficit target this year, is in fact going to come in with a deficit of about $2.5 billion.  This means that, not only will the “reinvestment” in higher education – the money that was going to compensate institutions for not getting their promised tuition increase – not come any time soon, but it’s better than even-money that there’ll be cuts this year instead. Two points: 1)      Hey, CREPUQ! 

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November 28, 2013 No Comments

Higher Education Tax Credits

Last week, CD Howe released a very good paper (available here) written by my colleague, Christine Neill, on the subject of tax credits in higher education.  It’s an important piece, because it not only puts in one place a number of key factual aspects of tax credits (what they cover, how much they’re worth), but it also places them in the context of research on behavioural economics.  Given what we know about behavioural economics, she asks, what should we expect

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November 22, 2013 No 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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