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Tag: Tax Credits

A Rare Piece of Good Policy in Quebec

So, although it wasn’t widely noticed at the time, one really excellent piece of policy came out of the crap-fest that was the Quebec Education Summit, a couple of weeks ago; it’s a policy that deserves a great deal of wider study and emulation.  For the first time in Canadian history, a government managed to get rid of a crappy tax credit, and use it to improve targeted, needs-based subsidies. Here’s what happened. The PQ, during its naked bid to

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May 23, 2013 1 Comment

Tax Deductibility

Here’s a question which I think may get a little more attention over the next few years, largely because the OECD has made it one of the principal recommendations under its new Skills Strategy. Should tuition be tax deductible? We’ve been here before, actually. Back in 1959, Diefenbaker was looking for something to counter the “national scholarships” idea being touted by Lester Pearson which was (a) less costly and (b) less irritating to Quebec. Eventually, he glommed onto a pitch of

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November 29, 2012 2 Comments

How Jean Charest Could Learn to Stop Worrying and Love a Tuition Rollback

If you’re Jean Charest, you’re probably starting to get antsy about the student strike jeopardizing the winter semester. But there’s actually a pretty simple way that the Quebec government could solve the impasse. A few weeks ago, we explained how what universities charge (sticker price) is different from what students pay (net tuition), due to the multi-headed loan-and-bursary monster known as student aid. But loans and bursaries aren’t the only way to offset tuition – there are also billions of

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April 11, 2012 1 Comment

A Prayer for Noah Morris

Noah Morris runs the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). He is the unfortunate soul who has the unenviable task of implementing Dalton McGuinty’s promise to give students 30% tuition rebates if they came from families with less than $160,000 in family income. It may have been popular electorally, but in policy terms it’s got “ugly” written all over it. The government could have implemented this through the OSAP system by just cutting cheques to student aid recipients. But no: somebody

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December 1, 2011 No Comments

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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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