Alberta’s post-secondary education system, still reeling from a massive cut in funding in 2013, has been hit again in this year’s provincial budget.
The Progressive Conservative government will cut operating grants to post-secondary institutions by 1.4 per cent this year, and another 2.7 per cent in 2016–2017. The government’s line is that the smaller-than-expected cuts this year and next are meant to give institutions time to make the transition to a new, more “financially sustainable” funding model and find “efficiencies.”
Rob Sutherland, president of the Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations, said while the cuts were “perhaps less severe than some had feared, it will place new pressure on already squeezed institutional budgets with more job losses, program closures and new barriers to students accessing learning opportunities.”
Finance Minister Robin Campbell stressed in his budget speech on March 26 that Alberta needs to align its system with national averages in government funding, user-pay and revenue generation, adding that “Alberta universities receive almost 58 per cent of their operating revenue from government funding, compared to 42 per cent in Ontario.”
Sutherland said the government’s approach is arbitrary and shortsighted.
“The use of ‘national averages’ is a blunt instrument and certainly doesn’t provide a sound basis for policy-making in Alberta, as it doesn’t account for the significant differences between the provinces,” he said. “With the province looking to reduce institutional reliance on government funding and encourage new revenue streams, the reference to national averages is a convenient excuse.”
One of those expected revenue streams could be tuition. In 2014, the province approved tuition fee increases in 25 programs, including commerce, pharmacy, law and business, from an eight per cent jump to a spike of more than 70 per cent, to bring them to comparative costs with other Canadian post-secondary schools.
Doug Short, president of the Alberta Colleges & Institutes Faculties Association, also questioned the indicators the government used to frame its budget pitch.
“Why should we work towards averages, especially those based on what happens in Ontario?” he counters. “Is Ontario, with the highest tuition fees in the country, a model to emulate? Why not Germany, where tuition is free?”
While Short agrees institutional efficiencies can be realized, he said cost-containment measures should be focused on reducing administrative bloat and not come at the expense of instructional and learning spaces.
The budget also signaled the possibility of government interference in decisions about academic programming. “We will work with the post-secondary institutions to preserve high demand, high-value programs and, correspondingly, to identify and shed low-value programs that do not represent good return on investment,” Campbell told the legislature in his budget speech.
The prospect has attracted considerable attention, Short said.
“Is return on investment the most important criteria?” he asks. “What will determine value? Whether or not a program’s teaching and research aligns with the government’s economic priorities?”
Sutherland said a government prioritization exercise to eliminate programs would be an “unacceptable” infringement on institutional autonomy and academic governance.
“Academic decision-making, at least in the universities, properly belongs to the academics, not the government,” he said. “What is at stake here is nothing less than the integrity of the academic mission of our universities.”