All Posts Tagged With: "British Columbia universities"
BC Student Support Programs cut by $34 million
UPDATED: Eventually, high school students will realize that debt will be a bigger issue if they stay in BC
CLARIFICATION: Our claim that $34 million had been removed from Student Support Programs is inaccurate. The Ministry of Advanced Education has split into the Ministry of Science and Universities, which is responsible for universities, and the Ministry of Regional Economic and Skills Development which is now responsible for colleges. Prior budgets included supports for both university and college students under the same ministry. They are now listed under separate departmental budgets. We regret the error.
With a new Premier of British Columbia set to be elected by the BC Liberal party at the end of this month, a lame-duck provincial budget was almost a certainty.
And it was, for the most part. A $600 million contingency fund was put in place for the next premier, but otherwise, this was a status quo budget, with no real winners or losers in any department.
Well, except for post-secondary students. Their programs for financial assistance were cut by $34 million.
In the budget estimates which need to be voted on, there’s a line item for “Student Support Programs”, which provide, and I quote:
financial, income and other assistance to and for students including scholarships, bursaries, loan forgiveness programs, transfers to students, and transfers for initiatives that enhance student performance and access. Costs may be recovered from organizations and the federal government for payments administered on their behalf for programs described within this sub-vote.
Now, here’s the amount of (rounded to the nearest million) money budgeted for that over the past four years.
2008: $132 million
2009: $99 million
2010: $84 million
2011: $50 million
Depressed yet? Consider that the student loan repayment program is considered to be abysmal, or that the government has also canceled the provincial grant program, that the Vancouver area is ridiculously expensive to live in, or that there isn’t even a ministry for post-secondary education anymore (it’s now “Science and Universities”) and you can see why student leaders are furious. The government, as it did during its throne speech, will trumpet the fact that there are more universities than ever before and that press releases from the Canadian Federation of Students don’t tell the whole story and so on.
But you know what? Ultimately, whomever is elected the next BC Premier will have to do a much better job of engaging on the issue, and at least pretending to give a hoot. Or at the very least, notifying student leaders before they make cuts (which they haven’t done in the past, and didn’t do today). Because eventually, high school students will click into the fact that debt will be a bigger issue if they stay in BC than any other province in Canada, and adjust accordingly.
Relationship of main job to graduate program
Graduates were asked if they were employed in jobs related to their program. The study found a high correlation: 60.5 per cent responded that their job was very related to their program and a further 30 per cent indicated that it was somewhat related. Doctoral grads reported a higher correlation with 77 per cent reporting [...]
Graduates were asked if they were employed in jobs related to their program. The study found a high correlation: 60.5 per cent responded that their job was very related to their program and a further 30 per cent indicated that it was somewhat related. Doctoral grads reported a higher correlation with 77 per cent reporting that their jobs were very related compared to 58 per cent for masters grads.
Relationship of main job to graduate program (Click chart to enlarge.)
Source: B.C. University Survey of Graduates from Masters and Doctorate Programs
SFU students and profs to protest government cuts
Classes sit empty as students and faculty join together to protest cuts
Many classes sat empty during lunch hour at Simon Fraser University today.
Students and faculty made a lunch date to join together in protest of provincial funding cuts implemented last year by the British Columbia government lead by Premier Gordon Campbell.
The protest has received the support of the University’s senate which passed an academic amnesty motion in January encouraging faculty to accommodate students planning to attend the protest. (I’m told that many professors have cancelled classes.)
Last spring, in a classic case of smoke-and-mirrors, the Campbell government announced a ‘re-prioritization’ of higher education funding. According to the government, they were moving from universities into high demand college programs in health care and the skilled trades.
Once the spotlights were off, it was quickly realized that the government was actually cutting both colleges and universities while playing a shell game..
The cutbacks were a major factor in the president of the University of Northern British Columbia decision to resign and return to the United States.
Most concerning for British Columbia universities is that these cuts occurred prior to the economic slowdown at a time when the government balance sheets could have afforded the funds necessary to provide stable funding to universities. If universities were so low on the government’s priority list when it had money; what is going to happen now that the government is facing a major budget shortfall?
This is an election year, it is quite possible that a strong showing on Burnaby mountain may get the attention of Premier Campbell in Victoria.
Then again, Campbell has kept Minister of Advanced Education Murray Coell on the job despite the attention he’s receiving from us pundits.
BC’s cuts to universities, colleges much more than reported
New estimates put cuts as high as $60 million, up from $16 million last week
The surprise funding cut to colleges and universities in BC announced last month appears to be a significantly higher figure than originally reported. The reported $16 million province-wide cut may be as high as $50 million, according to new estimates by the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC.
BC’s post-secondary institutions were given a nasty surprise March 12 when the Ministry of Advanced Education announced a 2.6 per cent funding cut across the board, only weeks before the new fiscal year begins in April. Institutions have been scrambling since to figure out exactly how the cuts will affect their specific funding and how to absorb the shortfall into their budget — budgets that in many cases have been planned for months and recently finalized.
The original news story from the Vancouver Sun, reported a total of $16 million in cuts that would affect six universities. At the time it appeared that colleges would benefit because the money was to be redirected at high priority areas, such as health care and skilled labour training. But as the numbers have been clarified, it is clear that colleges are also grappling with cuts and that the province-wide funding shortfall is much higher than originally believed.
The Confederation of University Faculty Associations (CUFA) has been attempting to get further clarification from the provincial government, but with little luck. “They haven’t been particularly forthcoming,” said executive director Robert Clift. Clift said that the 2.6 per cent cut to expected operating funding accounts for over $40 million but “with what we have been hearing the last week, that number is probably closer to $50 million,” said Clift.
Philip Legg, policy and communications of the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC, estimated that the cuts are in the $60 million range. Legg says that the shortfall is leading to layoffs at virtually every college in BC. “College presidents are saying that they are facing budget deficits,” Legg said. Some are as large as $2.3 million at Douglas College, which is a fairly large college.
UBC was initially expected to lose $8.7 million in funding. But in a statement to the UBC community president Stephen Toope said that UBC Okanagan stands to receive $4.5 million less than expected while UBC Vancouver will get $11.3 million less.
Although it is unclear where the $16 million figure came from, it is possible that the confusion stems from the fact that both base funding claw backs and seat reallocations are happening at the same time. Every institution, whether university or college, is affected by the 2.6 per cent cut to the base funding. In addition to that cut, the government is reallocating undergraduate FTE (full-time student seats), which means that many institutions are also losing per student funding.
