Universities and Colleges in Peril

An unsustainable higher education system

In recent months, we have seen an existential threat arising for the future of post-secondary education in many countries. Here in Canada, we have been practising a particularly insidious form of colonisation: making people from poorer countries subsidise our higher education system and using immigration to keep labour costs low. This had the side-effect of causing severe problems with housing, which could not accommodate a surge of over one million immigrants a year, and a drop in per-capita gross domestic product as employers opted for cheap labour rather than investing in more efficient systems.

The subsequent dramatic cut-back by the Federal government in international student visas in 2024 and the loss of the revenue that foreign students generated has revealed a fundamental crack in the economic base of higher education in this country.  The money from foreign students had become essential for Canadian public universities and particularly colleges to cover their costs. That essential money is no longer available, and large cracks are appearing in institutions’ budgets.

How this has happened

Public Canadian universities and particularly colleges have been faced with several developments over the last ten years that have made it more difficult to balance their budgets:

• domestic tuition fees frozen by provincial governments for several years (across Canada, but particularly in Ontario)
• increased costs due to inflation (wages in particular)
• a dramatic reduction in fees from international students due to recent cuts by Immigration Canada in student visas
• a slight decline in the number of Canadians at 18 years old.

A loss of support

In the past, this might have resulted in provincial governments putting more money back into the system. However, in 2024 there were several provincial elections and in most cases, none of the main parties even mentioned higher education in their election platforms. When the federal government announced the cuts in student visas and universities and colleges screamed at the financial impact, they were met with deathly silence from their provincial governments.

Governments have proven no longer willing to cover the essentials of running public universities and colleges, either directly through adequate grants, or indirectly by allowing domestic student fees to rise in line with inflation. 

The consequences

This has begun to result in cuts to staffing, increases in class size, closure of some programs altogether and a reduction in the number of courses that students can choose from. In other words, the quality of higher education is beginning to drop. 

The causes

One reason for this is that higher education has moved from a very small, elite system targeting a small and privileged sector of society, to a very large, more open system (in Canada, over 60 per cent of people in the age range 25-35 have received some form of higher education). Universities and colleges no longer just serve the church, the legal system and the government and civil service. Higher education is seen as a prime driver of economic development and innovation.

However, the system still reflects many of the forms and substance of the earlier elite system. There is not enough differentiation between institutions to reflect the expansion of needs; teaching and learning still reflect the earlier elite models of lecturing and in-person teaching. In particular, there has been a huge expansion in the range and number of stakeholders, from parents and students and professors, to governments, businesses and public agencies such as health, education and social services, but the direct link between these stakeholders and the institutions is often tenuous, at best.

A loss of confidence

Underlying this is a significant shift in public opinion. Higher education is seen as being expensive and not necessarily delivering good value. There is a reluctance to just throwing money over the institution’s wall and walking away. For universities and colleges to win back support from their governments and from the people who elect them, they need to do more to show that they are worth the money they need. In other words they need to produce better results for the same or less money. This requires more than just trimming round the edges. It requires fundamental change, and I will explore this further in future posts.

Up next

In the next post, due in a couple of days, I will look at how to make teaching and learning more cost-effective than at present.

Over to you

• Do you think public universities and colleges in your jurisdiction are in economic trouble and losing public support? Or do you think that the financial problems are just due to the sudden change in immigration policies in Canada and will eventually resolve themselves?
• Have public post-secondary institutions lost the confidence of government and/or the general public?
• Do you agree that the challenges are fundamental – or will some policy tweaks and better lobbying resolve the issue?
• Are most public institutions financially OK; it’s just that some institutions – particularly small rural ones – that are suffering?
• Should some public institutions go private and charge whatever fees are necessary to break even if they cannot manage in the current public system?