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Tag: European PSE

Demand Sponges

If you’ve ever spent any time looking at the literature on private higher education around the world – from the World Bank, say, or the good folks at SUNY Albany who run the Program for Research on Private Higher Education (PROPHE) shop – you’ll know that private higher education is often referred to as “demand-absorbing”; that is, when the public sector is tapped-out and, for structural reasons (read: government underfunding, unwillingness to charge tuition), can’t expand, private higher education comes to the

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February 23, 2015 No Comments

Performance-Based Funding (Part 3)

As I noted yesterday, the American debate on PBF has more or less ignored evidence from beyond its shores; and yet, in Europe, there are several places that have very high levels of performance-based funding.  Denmark has had what it calls a “taximeter” system, which pays institutions on the basis of student progression and completion, for over 20 years now, and it currently makes up about 30% of all university income.  Most German Länder have some element of incentive-based funding

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February 19, 2015 3 Comments

Some Interesting New Models of Student Representation

Historically, the development of student movements has been heavily linked with nationalism, anti-colonialism, modernity, and the development of the welfare state (i.e. they were pro all four of those).  However, as higher education has become massified around the world, students have by and large become less concerned with larger social issues, and more concerned with narrower, student-based concerns.  That hasn’t always led to a loss of radicalism (viz. the carré rouge), but it’s broadly true that over time student leadership

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January 16, 2015 1 Comment

The History of the Smorgasbord

One of the things that clouds mutual understanding of higher education systems across the Atlantic is the nature of the Arts curriculum.  And in particular, the degree to which they actually have them in Europe, and don’t over here. When students enroll in a higher education program in Europe, they have a pretty good idea of the classes they’ll be taking for the next three years.  Electives are rare; when you enter a program, the required classes are in large part already

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December 10, 2014 5 Comments

The Bologna Process Now

I was in Bucharest last week at the Bologna Process Researchers Conference (I chaired the Social Dimension/Equity Track), hosted by Romania’s amazingly productive higher education agency, UEFISCDI (don’t ask what it stands for).  So I thought it would be a good time to talk about where Bologna is at these days. The Bologna Process started back in 1998, essentially as a labour mobility measure.  Prior to Bologna, Europe had a bewildering variety of first degrees, lasting anywhere from two to six

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December 2, 2014 2 Comments

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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