Mainstream policy wonks often claim that tuition fees and rising levels of student debt in Canada are relatively inconsequential. They argue that though the costs of higher education for students (and sometimes their families) are increasing, so is post-secondary enrollment, meaning that raising the cost of post-secondary education clearly doesn’t block access. While enrollment is indeed […]
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The Progressive Economics Forum: 2011 Academic Ranking of World Universities
The 2011 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) was released on Monday. Because it’s compiled by Shanghai Jiaotong University, it’s commonly known as “the Shanghai ranking.” As I recently blogged about here, the methodology of global university rankings typically advantages English-language universities. This year’s Shanghai ranking confirms this: 20 of the Top 25 universities in the ARWU are located […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Hidden Impact of Rising PSE Costs for Students
Over the past several decades in Canada, tuition rates and student debt levels have both increased substantially. Yet, I am not aware of much research seeking to assess either how exactly this impacts students, or how precisely students are making ends meet. A recent article in the Huffington Post–though not focused on Canada–sheds some light on […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Concordia’s “Culture of Contempt”
In June of this year, a report was released on governance at Concordia University. The 39-page report was written by the External Governance Review Committee, a three-person committee chaired by none other than Bernard J. Shapiro (Canada’s first Ethics Commissioner). The report paints a picture of a rogue Board of Governors that ignored its own […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Tuition Increases by Stealth
On Tuesday night, Peterborough City Council approved a plan for a for-profit corporation to own and operate a new student residence at Trent University. I’m concerned that this may signal a new trend at Canadian universities; about a year ago, I blogged about a similar plan at the University of Toronto. I am not opposed […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Is Social Assistance a “Poverty Pariah?”
An article in the current edition of NOW Magazine looks at social assistance in Ontario. The article is aptly entitled “Poverty Pariah,” in light of how apparently unpopular Ontario’s welfare system has become over the past 20 years. As can be seen at the National Council of Welfare’s Interactive Welfare Incomes Map, a single adult […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Global University Rankings
The European University Association (EUA) recently released a report they’d commissioned entitled Global University Rankings and Their Impact. The report was written by Andrejs Rauhvargers. According to the EAU, one of their major motivations in commissioning the report was that their member universities are “often under pressure to appear in the rankings, or to improve their position in […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: How To Fund Innovation
Just over a year ago, I wrote an opinion piece about the federal government’s “innovation strategy” and its impact on the post-secondary education sector. In the piece, I argue that the strategy has resulted in significant funding increases for university R&D. But I also argue in the piece that the strategy creates winners and losers–i.e. a “world class” doctoral student […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Use University Research to Increase Manufacturing Jobs
Manufacturing jobs have been declinining as a percentage of total jobs in most OECD countries for several decades, with Ontario being especially hard-hit as a jurisdiction. At the end of the Second World War, manufacturing jobs accounted for 26% of all Canadian jobs; by 2007, this figure had dropped to just 12%. And as I’ve […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: How Rob Ford Can Fix Social Housing
I have an opinion piece in today’s Toronto Star regarding Toronto’s Mayor, Rob Ford, and the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC). Mr. Ford would like to see a considerable number of units from TCHC’s existing stock sold off. For background on the issue, please my blog post of April 13, which can be found here. In today’s piece, I […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Fix PSE System Before Building Addition!
According to an article in yesterday’s Toronto Star, the Ontario government will create room for 60,000 new students in its colleges and universities by 2015-2016, 10% of which will be for graduate students. (I assume this means that, by 2015-2016, there will be 60,000 more students enroled in Ontario’s post-secondary insitutions than is currently the case, and that […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Town Without Poverty
A guest post from Richard Pereira, a recent winner of the PEF Essay Contest… – Canadian Economics Association – The Town Without Poverty There were hundreds of speakers at this year’s CEA conference in Ottawa. About a dozen of these were designated “Special Lectures/Conférences spéciales” and among them were Jack Mintz on “The GST After […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Reduce Student Debt to Reduce Household Debt
At this year’s Annual Conference of the Canadian Economics Association, Armine Yalnizyan gave a presentation entitled “Surviving the Recovery: The Distribution of Canadian Household Debt.” The panel was co-sponsored by the Canadian Association for Business Economics and the Progressive Economics Forum. As Armine made clear in her presentation, household debt in Canada has steadily risen over the […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Homelessness in Yellowknife
I’m in Yellowknife all week attending events relating to the launch of a policy report on homelessness. The report is one of several articles coming out of a multi-year research project looking at affordable housing and homelessness in the Northwest Territories. The project is being supervised by Dr. Frances Abele (Carleton University) and our community partner […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Access to Post-Secondary Education
I recently had the chance to read a 2008 book entitled Who Goes? Who Stays? What Matters? Accessing and Persisting in Post-Secondary Education in Canada. Edited by Ross Finnie, Richard Mueller, Arthur Sweetman and Alex Usher, the anthology features 14 chapters written by a total of 21 authors. I found Chapter 4 (co-authored by […]
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