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Tag: Australia

The Australian Experiment (Part 1)

I spent a good part of this month in Australia, talking to people about the radical program introduced in the May budget.  The basics of the system are as follows: A recently-introduced plan of uncapped places, with the government funding as many students as institutions wish to admit, was maintained; however, the average amount of the per-student subsidy will drop by 20%; Tuition fees will be fully de-regulated.  Institutions will be able to charge what they like, subject to the

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August 28, 2014 1 Comment

Back to School 2014

Morning, all.  Ready for the new school year run-down? One thing already clear is that pretty much the whole sector has finally come to grips with the reality that annual 4% increases in funding aren’t coming back any time soon. That’s causing institutions to think more strategically than they’ve had to in a long time, which is a Good Thing – the downside is that there appears to be some places where this hard thinking is leading to some fairly

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August 25, 2014 No Comments

Summer Reading

Hi all.  Enjoying summer yet? Three recent works that I think are worth a peak at over the summer: 1.       George Fallis’ Rethinking Higher Education: Participation, Research and Differentiation.  The thing you need to know about George Fallis is that the size of the books he writes are all out of proportion to the point he is trying to make.  They’re good books, substantial books, useful books, but the actual point he makes could probably be made in an article of 15

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June 16, 2014 No Comments

Institutional Strategies: Simulacra or Reinvention?

I recently had the chance to read a re-issue of Simon Marginson and Mark Considine’s, The Enterprise University: Power Governance and Reinvention in Australia.  It’s a heck of a good read; among those currently writing about higher education, Marginson’s probably got the best turn of phrase around.  Some of it – around managerialism and the role of research expenditure in cementing it – seems a bit dated now, in the sense that no one would any longer find it surprising.  And the

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June 4, 2014 6 Comments

The Australian Revolution

Something important is happening in Australia. Briefly: a right-wing coalition took power in Australia a few months ago.  Said coalition created a “commission of audit” to look over public finances, and recommend “economies”; unsurprisingly, it came back with recommendations much like the ones the Commission on the Reform of Ontario Public Services would have, if Don Drummond, instead of being a mild, respected former public servant, had been an Orc with especially low blood-sugar.  Among the recommendations: large cuts in government

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May 22, 2014 1 Comment

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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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