New Brunswick
New Brunswick’s 2011 budget, released March 22 by the newly-elected Conservative government, partially spared post-secondary education from the $220 million austerity measures imposed on government programs to help reduce the provincial deficit.
Universities and colleges will see a 2 per cent increase in operating grants this year.
Dennis Desroches, president of the Federation of New Brunswick Faculty Associations, says this first budget shows the government has the “enlightened capacity to listen to and act on good arguments” for improving the province’s future.
“That the government has chosen to increase operating funding for post-secondary education in an era of cutbacks shows they recognize university education is the best hope for moving New Brunswick beyond its current fiscal situation,” he said.
The provincial budget did not provide good news for students, who will see a 3.6 per cent tuition increase this fall after a three-year freeze. New Brunswick is second in Canada for highest undergraduate tuition fees at $5,516. Only Ontario students pay more at $6,307.
The budget also introduced a shift towards stricter eligibility criteria for student loans by reinstating the parental contribution portion of the student loan application, a spending cut expected to save the province $1.6 million, while another budget decision calls for measures to increase bursaries targeted at low-income families.
In January 2011, the government announced more than $3 million in cuts to post-secondary education, mainly aimed at the Repayment Assistance Plan, a program designed to provide temporary repayment relief to former student borrowers in financial difficulty.
Desroches warns that high tuition fees and restrictive student financial assistance will compromise accessibility. “We must be careful to avoid at all costs making universities the preserve of the privileged,” he said.
“Our universities will fail in their mission to advance knowledge and to buttress civil society if they aren’t accessible to every New Brunswicker.”
Quebec
After decades of frozen tuition fees, Quebec’s March 17 budget announced a $1,625 university tuition hike over the next five years, representing a 75 per cent increase from the current fees of $2,168. The first increase of $325 will take effect this fall.
Finance Minister Raymond Bachand said students are being asked to pay their “fair share” of education. He also announced that one-third of the additional tuition revenues would go to student aid.
University presidents in the province generally lauded the move that will leave students paying more, although they were hoping for higher increases to be implemented faster.
“The government has been quite timid in the steps that it has taken with respect to tuition,” said McGill University principal Heather Monroe-Blum.
The province’s student federations were quick to denounce the new tuition rate as a move away from a commitment to accessible, public higher education, and accused the Charest government of imposing another tax on middle-class families.
“High tuition fees discourage students from going on to university and encourages them to leave the province to study,” said Ariel Charney, who heads the Dawson Student Union. “Charest needs to listen to Quebec families, not a handful of university presidents.”
The Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d’université said changing the post-secondary funding model in favour of increased contributions from students and their families is anything but equitable.
To encourage the private sector and citizens to invest more in the province’s universities, the budget also announced the creation of Placements Universités, a matching grant program for facilities and operational expenses.
A Decima-Harris poll conducted on behalf of the Canadian Federation of Students showed that two-thirds of Quebeckers did not want tuition fees to increase, while 60 per cent thought the government needed to increase funding for universities and colleges even it meant higher taxes.
This year’s budget also largely makes up the shortfall in research funding over the past few years with a 19 per cent increase to Quebec’s three granting councils, but FQPPU says the money provided will be used to support commercialization and applied research, at the expense of basic research.
Ontario
After last year’s promise to increase the number of spaces in colleges and universities by 20,000, this year’s Ontario budget touts another $309 million to support 60,000 additional students expected by 2015–2016.
The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations says while it welcomes the funding announcement, the budget ignores the lack of resources necessary for expansion as Ontario already has the worst student-to-faculty ration in Canada “Ontario faculty are ready to welcome new students to our campuses,” said Mark Langer, president of OCUFA. “The problem is, there just aren’t enough of us to make sure every student receives a quality education. Expanding enrolment is important, but without increased teaching resources these new students may not get the education they deserve.”
The budget also includes $50 million over 10 years for the Perimeter Institute, mirroring a funding pledge made by the federal government in its budget that has been put on hold due to the election.
Student reaction was mixed, with some students pleased to see that post-secondary education remains a priority amid difficult financial circumstances, while others were disappointed there was nothing to address the current financial realities facing students.
The Ontario chapter of the Canadian Federation of Students says expanding student spaces will actually reduce per student funding by 15 per cent over the next three years based on current funding commitments.
“The current government has layered tuition fee increases on the regressive fee policies of the Mike Harris government,” said Hamid Osman, Ontario rep of the CFS national executive. “Ontario students pay the highest tuition fees, study in the largest classes and receive the lowest per student funding in Canada and this budget simply allows these trends to continue.”
Ontario undergraduate students pay on average $6,300, while graduate students face fees of $9,000. Students carry on average $29,200 in public loans after a four-year degree, but taking private loans into account, that amount rises to $37,000.
“For every dollar the McGuinty government has made available to students through financial aid improvements, $1.42 has been clawed back through tuition fee increases,” said Sandy Hudson, chairperson of CFS-Ontario. “Accessibility is not just about creating more spaces, as many students can’t even get their foot in the door and thousands more are graduating with mortgage-sized debt loads.”
Recent public polling commissioned by OCUFA and CFS-Ontario shows a majority of respondents believe tuition fees in Ontario have risen to unacceptably high levels.
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan will be one of only two provinces this year reporting a budgeted surplus. So by all economic indicators, funding looked firm for post-secondary education ahead of the province’s budgetary proposals for 2011–2012.
But instead of significant new investments to operating grants for colleges and universities, the provincial budget tabled March 23 included only modest increases, while heralding almost $200 million in tax cuts and predicting a surplus of $115 million in the general revenue fund.
Tuition fees will also be allowed to rise by 3 per cent. Student financial support remains flat at almost $98 million, while the government is creating a new “Saskatchewan Advantage Scholarship” worth $3 million.
The budget offers a number of new funding initiatives for First Nations and Métis students with $600,000 available for financial support to improve completion rates at the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology, $600,000 for apprenticeships, and $1 million for the International Centre for Northern Governance and Development at the University of Saskatchewan.
The province is also putting an additional $1.5 million into the Saskatchewan Research Council, and $2.6 million in new operating funding is going towards the Canadian Light Source, Canada’s national synchrotron research facility based at the U of S.
Alberta
Faced with a budget shortfall of almost $5 billion for the second year in a row, Alberta’s Conservative government is cutting the advanced education ministry funding by 9.6 per cent for 2011–2012 with less money allocated for capital expenses and research and innovation, while adding a modest 1.2 per cent to the ministry’s operational support budgets for post-secondary education.
Walter Dixon, president of the Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations, says holding the line on operating grants to universities and colleges in February’s budget release is something of an achievement given the current fiscal and political climate.
He said while the long-term outlook for the province’s universities remains uncertain, “the consequences of a prolonged funding freeze are already being felt across our campuses, where further cutbacks are expected.”
Also allocated in the budget is $30 million for “lights-on” funding for new facilities, $20 million to address enrolment growth, and an additional $6 million to be used for recruiting and retaining faculty, which Dixon said may help ease some of the pressure on institutional budgets this year.
Alberta Colleges and Institutes Faculties Association president David Hyttenrauch said it will become more and more difficult for post-secondary institutions to provide a certain quality and quantity of programs.
“The projection is for no increase in the 2012 and 2013 budgets. Frozen budgets amount to cuts in real terms, and we were already seeing programs lost and positions cut before the impact of this budget is felt,” Hyttenrauch said.
The budget also suspends for the next two years matching monies from the Access to the Future Fund, a provincial endowment program set up in 2005 to match private donations to universities and colleges.
Hyttenrauch said the suspended fund payments were unexpected and a isappointment. “This puts at risk hundreds of millions of dollars of donations, and seems to signal that a community’s willingness to invest in post-secondary education is no longer matched by the government.”
Dixon says it’s not clear how potential donors will respond to the two-year hold on the fund, which provides about $45 million annually in funding to institutions. “There’s already a massive backlog of pledges waiting to be matched from what is a relatively modest endowment fund.”