Post-secondary sector says budget measures won't avert crisis in northern colleges and universities

We need elbows up, but also heads up, says the president of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Employees in response to measures announced in Ontario's budget last week.

Nigmendra Narain speaks for the organization representing 18,000 faculty, academic librarians and academic staff.

He says some steps announced in the budget are welcome, but will do nothing to ward off an impending financial crisis, and argues the province is reducing its funding from last year.

Many colleges and universities in the northeast are struggling and having to adjust their budgets suddenly.

Federal policy changes have capped the number of international students who pay three to six times the amount of domestic students.

While post-secondary institutions work to avoid outright lay-offs, schools such as Cambrian College in Sudbury and Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie have been offering early retirement incentives to faculty, re-assigning instructors and suspending intake to programs with low enrolment.

Cambrian College in Sudbury said it had to eliminate 22 positions because of a $40 million drop in revenue.

Algoma University is seeing its operating budget cut in half and it will welcome more than five thousand fewer students next fall. It has suspended intake to five programs with low enrolment this fall.

In a recent statement to CBC, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Colleges and Universities said the government has made an historic investment of $1.3 billion in the sector, and put $750 million to fund science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) student seats over five years.

Narain said those numbers need to be put in context.

"Their claim is based on the idea that they are doing it over the course of history, that it's a larger investment," he said. 

"Their own blue ribbon report suggested (an investment) closer to $3 billion. So they are 50 per cent or half the amount off of what their own blue ribbon panel suggested was a minimum amount of investment that is needed."

Narain said the amount being put into research is also declining since last year and while the STEM investment is welcome, it would be better for even more overall  funding so all students could study and contribute

"Some of them are going to do engineering degrees, they're going to do medical degrees, but they're also going to do English and theatre and political science and economics," he said. "So we need that funding to be there for the students to take the courses and so forth."

The budget also includes an additional $10 million to help out small, northern and rural colleges and universities.

The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance welcomed that measure in a statement.

"Rural and northern institutions have less-than-adequate infrastructure and services in place for their students compared to their more urban counterparts. As a result, this funding is a good step towards more comprehensive supports for these schools and we'd be keen to see this investment grow in other northern post-secondary areas like transit and infrastructure."

More college graduates live and contribute to rural, northern communities

An Ontario researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Carolina Aragão, said a larger concentration  of college graduates live and work in northern Ontario.

She said while the reliance on higher tuition of international students has masked the problem of insufficient government funding, there is a now a crisis as those students stay away.

"I think we are really seeing a funding crisis in post-secondary education, but we know that colleges are critical to promote the well-being of workers and communities and what we really need to see is that the government needs to step up," Aragão said.

'We're there for colleges and universities', says Bethlenfalvy

In an interview with CBC Sudbury after the budget, Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy acknowledged the difficulties facing the sector with the cap on international enrolment, but said that was an "Ottawa decision" and the province is putting in significant investment to fund colleges and universities.

"No question the caps are having an effect," he said. "But we're there for colleges and universities."