$20M cut to MUN's operating grant may mean tuition hike for some students

Memorial University will see a $20-million cut to its operating grant in Newfoundland and Labrador's 2015 budget, and the president says the university may consider increasing tuition for graduate and international students to create more revenue.

Memorial University President Gary Kachanoski said no official steps have been taken yet.after the cut to the operations was announced in the budget Thursday.

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However, he said the cut will be spread across the university's infrastructure components of the budget and the pension components. Kachanoski added the university will also need to find ways to bring in more money.

"We've got plans in place to try to mitigate, we've got revenue generation opportunities the government has given us," he said

"They've taken a tuition model with us and indicated that they'll support a freeze on undergraduate tuition for Canadian students, but that tuition for graduate students and international students will no longer be supported under the freeze."

Kachanoski said another factor that could affect how the operating cut rolls out is talks about pension renewal and how those discussions play out with government.

In addition to looking at tuition increases for some students, Kachanoski said the university will also review it's "second priority" infrastructure plans to see if they can be reconsidered.

However, that doesn't include the core sciences building, which government announced its commitment to in the speech from the throne last week and is to be presented to the university's Board of Regents in July for final approval.

No official plans in place

Premier Paul Davis said government has asked every department to look at its operations and find a way to better deliver services in an effective way — and that includes Memorial University.

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"We've talked about it in health care, we've talked about it in education, we've talked about it in core government service and it applies here to Memorial as well, so they're doing that and they're very pleased to work with us," said Davis.

"We're going to continue to make investments in education. We make those investments in Memorial and post-secondary institutions, that's creating investments in students, in our children, in our youth, which is our future."

Kachanoski said there are no specific proposals yet on what cutting spending will mean for the university.

"We're going to take the numbers and dissect them all out in the next couple of weeks, we're going to meet with student groups, we're going to meet with our deans, we're going to meet with our senate planning budget committee and we're going to make a proposal to the Board of Regents," he said.

Until that happens, Kachanoski said nothing is set in stone as of yet.