Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

Though he's focused rather more on economics than on learning and technology, Alex Usher's analyses of higher education in Canada are always a good read. This post summarizes his latest report (136 page PDF) once you get past the advertisements. His main focus in this summary is "recent changes in the provision of student aid, and specifically the massive run-up in student grants which has been occurring." Now the graphic he runs is very misleading, as it makes it look like grants are up across the board, while in fact only one grant program has increased over the last few years, the Canadian government Canada Student Financial Assistance Program's (CSFAP) (formerly the Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP)), while everything else has been shrinking. Usher also looks at institutional research, though while he mentions "Memorial University's intriguing research profile" there's nothing in that chapter that would warrant such a remark (perhaps he means the quip about health funding in chapter 4). More telling, I think, is the data that shows (once again) that the Canadian private sector far underperforms its counterparts in other OECD nations.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2024 05:56 a.m.

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