The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

Tag: Free Tuition

Why is the NDP so Bad on Student Aid?

Here’s a thing which has puzzled me for pretty much the entirety of my adult life: why is it that the New Democratic Party – in theory the party most likely to defend the marginalized – can’t come up with decent student aid policies?  Why is it that at every turn, they choose to embrace the policies that are the least equitable and effective? (Major caveat: I exempt the BC New Democrats from this analysis, because they mostly have their

Read More »
November 12, 2020 2 Comments

Two Quick International Student Aid Updates

From Denmark and New Zealand, we have some very interesting policy developments to review. Let’s start down south, where Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party seems to be cruising to a massive electoral victory in next week’s election.  Labour, which came second in 2017 but grabbed the brass ring via a coalition agreement with the nationalist/populist New Zealand First party, seems to be within touching distance of a standalone majority, which is almost impossible in a proportional representation system.  I guess that’s

Read More »
October 15, 2020 No Comments

Nordic Student Aid, Nordic Access

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a little bit about Nordic countries and some of the trade-offs they consider in order to keep tuition fees at zero when public funding is under stress.  I thought I would complement this with a piece that looked at the access side of the Nordic system, both in terms of student aid and in terms of the kinds of access challenges that exist even in a free-tuition system. To start with student aid:

Read More »
November 20, 2019 6 Comments

2019 PSE Platforms – Green Party

Today’s blog will be the first in a series looking at the various federal party election platforms on post-secondary education, skills, and science. First up: the Green Party. I opened this year’s Green Party Manifesto with some trepidation because, well, the 2015 platform was such a dumpster fire. And, wouldn’t you know it, the 2019 platform is also a dumpster fire. Quelle coincidence! This is not merely an issue of bad policy; it’s about policy incoherence. Prior to the writ,

Read More »
September 30, 2019 No Comments

The Warren Proposal

No doubt everyone has heard about the ginormous ($1.25 trillion) promise that Massachusetts Senator and Democratic Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren made around post-secondary education last week.  But I suspect more people heard/saw the heat and noise about the promise rather than the promise itself.  So, herewith, a quick rundown and analysis: So, the first thing to note is that technically the package contained several policies.  The two major ones are about making tuition free in public schools, and a massive

Read More »
April 30, 2019 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.

Subscribe

Search Posts

Search Publications

Social Media

Linkedin Youtube Spotify

Recent Posts

More thoughts on...