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Category: Worldwide PSE

Higher Education Diplomacy

I had been noodling for a couple of weeks about how nation states use higher education as a soft power tool, when all of a sudden last Saturday morning stuff starts popping up in my feed about how Canada and India have just announced a joint “Talent Strategy” as part of Prime Minister Carney’s visit to India over the weekend. This announcement was so weak and superficial, I thought I should write a little bit about it, just to show how

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March 4, 2026 No Comments

Generation Z and the New Politics of Protest

Historically, students have played an outsized role in politics. They were key to overthrowing regimes in places like South Korea in the 1960s, Ghana in the 1970s, and Serbia in 2000. And even in the recent past, we’ve seen students oust a regime in Bangladesh. But things seem to be changing. Since the overthrow of Sheikh Hasina’s government in Bangladesh a year and a half ago, we’ve seen strongly youth infused protest movements, which have overthrown governments in Nepal, Madagascar,

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February 19, 2026 No Comments

The Fifteen: February 13, 2026

Just a quick reminder before we move into the one thought of the day: we’ve officially launched HESA’s Transnational Education (TNE) Strategy Project and are now looking to finalize our founding cohort of member institutions. If your institution is exploring (or re-examining) transnational education as part of its future strategy, we’re inviting expressions of interest by February 23. You can learn more about the project here. Good morning. Not much of a unifying theme to this issue of The Fifteen:

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February 13, 2026 1 Comment

Higher Education Beyond the Public Good

The last decade or so has seen enormous changes in world politics. It’s also seen some major changes the way governments relate to higher education, particularly in the anglosphere. For many, it’s been a polycrisis on top of a polycrisis – a multi-directional series of attacks on and challenges to the public standing of higher education at the exact moment when the socio-political underpinnings of the entire post-war settlement seems to be crumbling. Sounds like a pretty good subject for a book,

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February 12, 2026 No Comments

Higher Education After Its Peak

Ever since World War II, higher education has been a growth industry. Maybe student numbers haven’t risen every year, or funding hasn’t always gone up, but the general trend has been positive. But right across the world, that upward trend has come under threat over the last decade or so. In Korea or Taiwan, for instance, youth numbers have collapsed, and with them enrolments have fallen and universities have closed. In the rest of the OECD, public funding for higher

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February 5, 2026 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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