A man walks across the Dalhousie University campus in Halifax in 2020. Nova Scotia’s 10 universities received $461.4-million from the provincial government this year.Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press
Nova Scotia universities say they’ve been dealt another “serious blow” after the province announced a new funding model on Friday that caps tuition increases, hikes fees for international students and requires schools to add more housing.
Ottawa recently said it will cap the number of new international student visa permits nationwide – a policy that the chair of the Council of Nova Scotia University Presidents said will potentially cost its universities millions of dollars in lost revenue and harm the province’s reputation as a desirable education destination.
“Coupled with today’s provincial government announcement, both levels of government have created an elevated level of uncertainty across Nova Scotia’s university sector,” said David Dingwall, also the president of Cape Breton University.
Mr. Dingwall, a former cabinet minister under prime minister Jean Chrétien, said the new funding framework with tailored agreements for each school is “extraordinarily distressing” and creates “unnecessary financial hardships for many universities.”
The new one-year agreements will replace the current agreement which expires at the end of March. The province told the universities what was in the plan this week and they must come to an agreement on it to secure funding for the coming school year.
Under the plan, each university is required to develop proposals for 2025 to 2028 that outline how they will advance government priorities that include health care, housing and labour market demands. This is expected to inform longer-term agreements between the province and universities to be finalized later this year.
Ottawa’s international student cap will create financial risks, university and college leaders say
The 2024-25 agreement will lower the cap on tuition increases from 3 per cent to 2 per cent for Nova Scotia undergraduates, while hiking tuition at most schools by at least 9 per cent for first-year international undergraduate students. Universities will be required to increase student housing in Halifax and Sydney where needs are highest, and to provide plans on how international students will be recruited, housed and connected to the labour market, explained Nova Scotia’s Minister of Advanced Education Brian Wong to reporters during a press conference.
“We must hold institutions accountable for the significant government funding, public dollars they receive,” said Mr. Wong. “We are in a period of unprecedented work force demand. We have a housing crisis. We have immigration. We need to solve those problems.”
This year, Nova Scotia’s 10 universities received $461.4-million from the provincial government. Raising tuition by at least 9 per cent aligns better with the true cost of education for international students, Mr. Wong said.
However, Mr. Dingwall said university presidents are disappointed in the lack of collaboration after being led to believe they would be more involved, adding that the announcement disregards the contribution Nova Scotia universities make to the economic, social and cultural development of communities across the province.
The funding regime will provide a 2-per-cent increase in annual operating grants for most universities, up from 1 per cent in the expiring agreement signed in 2019. Some of the operating grant will be held back until universities achieve specific targets within their agreements.
In a statement, Acadia University spokesperson Robyn McBain provided a rosier response to the province’s new funding regime. “We look forward to working with the government to address the current challenges our institutions face and work collaboratively to meet the necessary funding requirements and support the needs of our students,” she wrote.
Students Nova Scotia executive director Georgia Saleski said the announcement included “big wins” for students, but said she was concerned about the sustainability of postsecondary education in the province because provincial funding depends on strategic agreements.
“It’s going to be important to ensure that we’re focusing on keeping education not only to the quality that it has been here in Nova Scotia, but also in a way that’s going to be accessible and affordable for students that would like to study in Nova Scotia,” Ms. Saleski said.
Nova Scotia students face the highest domestic tuition in Canada, paying 36.5 per cent above the national average. International students pay more than double that, which is still lower than in other provinces.
“While we’re excited to see the domestic tuition cap being lowered, we don’t want those implications to then be put on other students, like international students or out-of-province students, to have to bear that weight to contribute to university revenue streams,” added Ms. Saleski.