A new HEQCO conference, Fear of Finance: Financial Literacy and Planning for Postsecondary Education (Nov. 3-4) will explore educational financial literacy — the knowledge of the costs, benefits and available aid associated with higher education. And it’s not a moment too soon. Ontario leads the nation in postsecondary participation, but despite rising enrolments overall, the […]
One of the most startling statistics I learned since joining HEQCO last year was that about 50 per cent of students eligible for financial aid don’t apply for it, even though some of the money they would get is grants that they do not have to repay. Who gives up the opportunity of free government […]
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Carolyn Acker: Closing the Achievement Gap
In 2001, as executive director of the Regent Park Community Health Centre, I founded the Pathways to Education program with Norman Rowen. At the time we didn’t think of ourselves as social entrepreneurs. We were working hard to break the cycle of poverty and implement the health centre’s vision of “community succession”– that the young […]
HEQCO has produced or commissioned more than 126 research studies on postsecondary access, quality and accountability. While we regularly share our research with hundreds of people involved in the sector, including government, academic leaders and media, we can’t really expect the beleaguered press to tell our story to the broader public as often as we’d […]
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Alexi White: FYI: OUSA on MYAAs
Hello from the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA). I’ve been invited to mix things up a bit with a guest blog from the student perspective. Since the government has announced that new Multi-Year Accountability Agreements (MYAAs) are in the works, I’d like to dip a toe into the discussion around how best to ensure our […]
Because of the fundamental importance of people to any organization, I begin with a key turning point last year when we said goodbye to our founding president, Jim Downey, and welcomed our new president, Harvey Weingarten. With Jim and Harvey, lightning has struck HEQCO twice: Jim got HEQCO going and recruited most of our talented […]
One of the most ubiquitous and powerful arguments made by advocates of greater investment in higher education is that a postsecondary education is instrumental to economic success, for both the individual and the public. The public and governments appear to have accepted that 70-80 per cent of future jobs will require some postsecondary credential and […]
Ode to the Super Bowl: Getting and Staying in the Game The director of communications at HEQCO is getting concerned that it has been some time since I have posted a new blog. She is worried that I will lose readership. I think I do not take this concern as seriously as she does because […]
There are a plethora of university ranking systems, many of them generated by media (and often a source of considerable revenue for them). The most well known include those from Shanghai Jiao Tong, Times Higher Education, U.S. News and World Report and, in Canada, the Globe and Mail and Maclean’s. There are innumerable other university […]