Category: Tuition

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

Read More »

UK Tuition Hikes Revisited

To recap: in 2012, average English tuition fees rose by 158% to roughly £8500, with no corresponding increase in grants.  As we’ve seen previously, this resulted in a fall in English applications of about 8%.  The effect was not evenly distributed among all groups: among 18 year-olds, the drop was 1-2% (depending on what base you use), whilst among applicants over 19, the decrease was 15-20%. But of course, it’s never best to rely on one year of data, especially

Read More »

The Effect of Tripling Tuition Fees: UK Latest

As most of you know, UK tuition fees more or less tripled this past year. The initial applicant/enrolment data from a couple of months ago (which I covered, here) indicated that applications fell by about 8%, but also that the drop came almost entirely from older students (among traditional-aged students, the drop was just 1%).  Worrying, but not apocalyptic. Last week, two new interesting pieces of data were released.  The first was application data by race; though Black and Asian

Read More »

The Curiosity of School

One book that got a little bit of attention, and a lot of Indigo/Chapters shelf space,  over the Christmas period was a little tome called The Curiosity of School, by Ontario freelance writer, Xander Sherman.  While the book does contain the occasional nugget (the bits on testing are kind of fun), it remains unquestionably the worst book I’ve ever read on education! The basic thesis here – from the home-schooled Sherman – is that School gets in the way of real education, and is

Read More »

They’re From Queen’s Park, and They’re Here to Help

Want to know what’s in store for higher education in Ontario?  Take a quick look at the platforms of Liberal leadership contenders. Eric Hoskins’s five point “prescription” for a healthy Ontario omits education entirely.  Similarly, co-front runner Sandra Pupatello’s platform avoids any and all mention of education.  Ditto for Gerard Kennedy (at pixel time, he actually appears not to have a platform of any kind). Kathleen Wynne and Charles Sousa each have similar platform commitments to increasing co-op, experiential learning, etc.  In

Read More »