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Category: Worldwide PSE

Better Know a Higher Ed System: India (Part 1)

India is a big, crazy, multi-faceted, barely-functioning-but-still-impressive-it’s-functioning-at-all kind of country.  So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that its higher education system is a big, crazy, multi-faceted, barely-functioning- but-still-impressive-it’s-functioning-at-all kind of system. The indigenous tradition of higher education stretches back to the 6th century AD.  Back then, Nalanda University was a world-centre of (mostly) Buddhist learning, which attracted students from Nepal, China, Southeast Asia, and Tibet.  Nalanda was also the first university with student dorms, and (allegedly) developed the first

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November 27, 2014 3 Comments

Variation in Tuition in the United States

One of the things foreigners always get wrong about the American higher education system is tuition fees.  The external perception of tuition is driven by what’s happening at the famous private institutions, mainly in the country’s northeast.  But that’s not even close to being the whole story. Figure 1: Tuition by Type of Institution, United States, 2014-15               It is true that tuition at private non-profits is pretty high – $31,231, on average; though it

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November 21, 2014 1 Comment

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

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November 20, 2014 No Comments

An Update from Australia

Back in our spring (their fall), the Government of Australia announced a new university funding policy, which consisted of: Cutting per-student public funding by about 20%; but, Subsequently allowing funding to rise along with enrolments (this is known in Australia as “demand-driven funding”); Simultaneously de-regulating all tuition; and, Allowing the interest rate on student loans to rise from equal to inflation to equal to the government’s 10-year bond rate (i.e. actually placing a real interest rate on the loan). Understandably, students

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November 12, 2014 No Comments

An Update from England

In 2012, the UK government allowed tuition in English universities to rise from a little over £3,300 to ($5,500) to about £9,000 ($15,300) in a single year.  Well, technically, they de-regulated tuition up to a maximum of £9,000, but since charging less than the maximum would obviously imply that programs weren’t top-quality, pretty much everyone went to the maximum immediately. Actual average tuition jumped to about £8,600 ($14,620). So, of course, we’ve all been wondering what the effects of this would be. 

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November 11, 2014 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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