By Alex Usher. In the United States, maybe the most interesting story of the last few weeks has been the student occupation of the Administration Building at Howard University, a historically black university in Washington DC.  The ostensible trigger was the revelation that several university employees had been effectively embezzling student financial aid money, but it also had deeper roots in the sub-standard housing available to university students. More...

By Alex Usher. If you follow US higher ed news at all, you will have heard the story of Purdue University, Indiana’s other, somewhat more STEM-focussed, state university system.  Under the leadership of former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, Purdue has managed to freeze in-state tuition stable for the last seven years. How is this happening, you ask. More...

By Alex Usher. The Government of Saskatchewan delivered its budget yesterday which means that all ten provinces are now in – much earlier than usual (there’s usually one irritating May holdout).  And guess what?  It’s another year of (on aggregate at least) barely keeping up with inflation. More...

By Alex Usher. Our usual annual round-up of provincial budgets will come Wednesday, right after Saskatchewan posts its numbers, but as I was writing a draft of the piece I realized it makes almost no sense to talk about national trends in provincial funding without looking at what is going on in Ontario, because to a large extent it drives the national numbers. More...