Student leaders worry as U of C revenues now rely on tuition more than base grants

University of Calgary Students' Union president Shaziah Jinnah Morsette is worried about the institution's latest budget. 

And that's because, for the first time, the University of Calgary's revenue pie chart has seen slices change a sliver: there's less money coming from Alberta's coffers than the pockets of students. 

"Students cannot afford to be a key shareholder in this budget pie," Jinnah Morsette said. "As a public institution, I expect more from our government to support operations now and into the future." 

The University of Calgary gets two pots of money from the government: the Campus Alberta Grant, which schools can use as they see fit for program delivery, and various other grants, which Jinnah Morsette said come with specific spending requirements. 

That Campus Alberta Grant for the 2024-25 budget represents less revenue for the University of Calgary than what's coming in from student tuition: $388.9 million versus $410.8 million. 

But this is a shift the Alberta government has been working toward for years. The province wants universities to be less reliant on taxpayer dollars.

"Alberta is funding post-secondary education in a responsible way that respects taxpayer dollars, provides students with the most value for their investment, and ensures we continue to produce a skilled workforce for the jobs tomorrow," read a statement from Mackenzie Blyth, press secretary for Advanced Education Minister Rajan Sawhney.

And Alberta has shifted funding contributions to its post-secondary institutions from 51 per cent in 2019-20 to 43 per cent in 2021-22. 

Information provided by the advanced education minister's office showed in 2021-22 British Columbia contributed 38 per cent of funding to its post-secondaries while the Ontario government shelled out just 26 per cent.

This Alberta strategy started with the MacKinnon Report, a look at the province's spending, published in 2019.

The report recommended Alberta should move to a revenue mix that's comparable to British Columbia and Ontario schools. 

In January 2020, past advanced education minister Demetrios Nicolaides wrote an op-ed for Postmedia, hinting at a new funding model for post-secondary institutions that would tie cash to performance measures and see taxpayer funding decrease while revenues from tuition would make up the difference.

That op-ed also proposed a shifted funding split: tuition was funding 20 per cent of operations, with 50 per cent coming from taxpayer dollars — and the minister wanted to adjust those figures to 25 per cent and 45 per cent, respectively. The pandemic dampened some of what Nicolaides announced the same month, but budget documents in 2024 suggest the province aims to take the split further.

Alex Usher is the president of Higher Education Strategy Associates, a public policy group that monitors and analyzes the state of post-secondary education in Canada.