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Category: Worldwide PSE

The Finances of World Class Universities (Part 1)

Along with my colleague Marcos Ramos, I’ve been working recently on some analysis of “world-class universities” and how they have been getting on in the world.  Over the next couple of days I’m going to just lay out some of this research.  Buckle in: We define “world-class universities” as any institution in the top 200 of the 2017 Shanghai Academic Rankings of World Universities (ARWU).   Our measure of financial clout is expenditures per student, converted to $US at purchasing-power-parity, using

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November 7, 2017 No Comments

Student Loan Interest Rate Policy

One student aid policy debate that pops up periodically around the world – most recently in the United Kingdom – is the question of interest rates.  On the one hand, you have people who use a slightly medieval line of thought to claim that any interest on loans is a form of “profit” and hence verboten where students are concerned.  On the other side, you have people who note that loan interest subsidies by definition only help people who have already “made it” to

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November 6, 2017 1 Comment

Notes from Brazil

There’s a lot happening in Brazil these days, what with an economic catastrophe, an impeached President, a significant fraction of the country’s political class and business elite under indictment, the return of major gang warfare to Rio and a set of Men’s World Cup qualifying results which suggest that the selecão might not be quite as useless one would think given their performances in their last three tournaments.  Meanwhile, there are lots of big stories in higher education, too: Science With Borders

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October 13, 2017 1 Comment

Of No Fixed Address

Most people usually think of universities as being particularly stable, physically speaking.  Sure, they grow a bit: if they are really ambitious they add a satellite campus here and there – maybe even set one up overseas.  But by and large, the centre of the university itself stays put, right? Well, not always.  There are some interesting exceptions. In the first place, the idea of a “university” as a physical place where teaching gets done is not a universal one. 

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October 6, 2017 No Comments

The Real Competition is Closer Than You Think

I’ve recently been dismissive of the notion that Canada is “falling behind” in higher education since everyone seems to insist on making ludicrous comparisons with places like China, Switzerland and Singapore.  But upon a little bit of further digging, it turns out there is one of our very close competitors which is doing rather well these days, one we probably should be worried about despite the fact that we’ve mostly been ignoring it since the Financial Crisis of ’08. It’s our

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October 3, 2017 2 Comments
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