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Category: Worldwide PSE

Harvard. I Mean, Really.

Last week, the Harvard Crimson printed some unofficial estimates on the university’s current capital campaign.  Be forewarned: these numbers will give many of you a heart attack, so to soften the impact I’m going to lead  by providing some background on the campaign.  Universities raise money.  Sometimes it’s small donations, sometimes it’s big ones.  Sometime the university spends that money right away, sometimes the money goes into an endowment, which means the capital is available in perpetuity and the university

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April 21, 2016 1 Comment

Innovation to Watch at the University of Sydney

Australian universities seem to do “Big Change” a lot better than universities elsewhere.  A few years ago, the University of Melbourne radically overhauled its entire curriculum in the space of about two years partly to create a more North American-like distinction between undergraduate and professional degrees and partly to reduce degree clutter by winnowing the number of different degrees from over a hundred to just six.  (For a refresher, I wrote about this back here). If you read press reports about

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April 7, 2016 4 Comments

Why the US Free Tuition Debate is Different

Free tuition is a growing political issue in the United States.  Most of the free tuition plans out there (for instance in Tennessee and Oregon) are effectively variations of what was recently introduced in Ontario – that is, a re-packaging of student aid so that some students pay “net zero” in college – or at least community colleges.  The plan President Obama has presented to Congress over the past twelve months or so seems to be a bit more expansive –

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March 30, 2016 No Comments

How Much is a Brand Worth? Evidence from Doha

The Washington Post had an absolutely fascinating article earlier this week regarding the sums that the Government of Qatar is paying various American universities to be part of its set up at Education City. For those who are unfamiliar with Education City, a slight diversion.  About 15 years ago the Qatari royal family got frustrated with the state of local education and hit on the idea of creating a world-class educational facility by inviting top US universities to come in and

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March 11, 2016 No Comments

Better Know a Higher Education System: Jordan

I’ve had occasion recently to take a deeper look at higher education in a couple of Arab states, and one system I’ve found to be especially fascinating is that of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Jordan is a middle-income country (gdp/capita = $12,000 or so), but one with a lot of problems on its hands.  Not only is it dealing with a multi-million refugee flow from neighbouring Syria, it has also lost a huge amount of remittance income as low

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March 9, 2016 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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