The latest Federal Scientific Activities report from Statistics Canada indicates that Canada’s federal government expenditures on science and technology for 2013-14 will decline 3.3 per cent from the previous year. The reduction will not only harm government agencies like Statistics Canada and the National Research Council, but will also reduce funding to research “performers” like universities. If inflation forecasts […]
Funding
Support for research and development in Canada has stagnated, due largely to a decrease if federal government support. Ontario continues to do better than most provinces, but mainly by directing more operating funds to research activities. Statistics Canada reports that research and development (R&D) spending by universities and other higher education research institutions rose by 3.4 per cent between 2011-12 and 2012-13. After […]
The latest release of Financial Information of Universities and Colleges offers little reason for optimism that the Ontario’s university funding gap will be closed any time soon. A brief respite courtesy of the Ontario government’s Reaching Higher plan notwithstanding, per-student provincial operating funding for Ontario’s universities has lagged the average in the rest of Canada […]
As we reported in last week’s OCUFA Report , Ontario has announced plans to cut the amount of per-student funding provided to the province’s teacher education programs. This week, OCUFA wrote a letter to Minister Liz Sandals (Education) and Brad Duguid (Training, Colleges, and Universities) expressing our concerns. The full text of the letter follows: Dear Ministers Duguid and Sandals, […]
At first glance, the 2013 Ontario Budget doesn’t say much at all about higher education. This silence obscures the austerity logic still working against the province’s universities. The 2013 Budget continues the slow cuts announced in 2012. Through so-called “policy levers”, some $121 million is being cut from university budgets in 2012-13 and 2013-14. The government will also begin clawing […]
If a government’s commitment to “innovation” can be measured by its support to the institutions that carry out innovative research and educate the people who put their own ingenuity to work, Ontario’s government support is on a downward slide. University funding as a percentage of GDP still lags well behind the rest of Canada, despite […]
Read OCUFA’s full budget analysis . Ontario’s 17,000 professors and academic librarians are calling on Premier Wynne to invest in the province’s universities after today’s budget missed an opportunity to introduce new funding for higher education institutions. The 2013 Budget continues to impose small cuts on the university sector, leading to an overall decline in per-student funding. “Ontario already has the worst […]
A lower cap on tuition sounds nice, but lurking beneath is a more ominous cap on government funding. The new tuition framework, announced last week by the Ontario government, won’t change the fact that tuition fees for at Ontario’s universities are already the highest in Canada. For the next four years, universities can hike tuition for graduate students by five […]
Higher education is a provincial responsibility, which gives the federal government a free pass when it comes to scrutiny of university and college funding. But the decline in federal transfers for postsecondary institutions is a big reason why tuition is so high and per-student public funding levels are so low. Federal funding for universities, colleges, and […]
The gap in government funding between Ontario universities and American public universities has narrowed, albeit simply by default. But the gap in provincial funding between Ontario and the rest of Canada is headed in the other direction. At its best in 2006-07, the rate of Ontario government operating, trust and research funding for teaching, research and […]
The free-fall in US state government support for universities is over. According to data collected by the Grapevine project at the Illinois State University Center of Education Policy, total state support in 2012-13 remains virtually the same as the previous year. That said, it is still 11 per cent lower than it was five years […]
Just about everyone agrees that Ontario needs strong universities to drive student success, economic growth, and social vitality. Too bad the Government of Ontario still hasn’t gotten the message. The Council of Finance Officers – Universities of Ontario (COFO) report for 2011-12 indicates that provincial operating funding to Ontario universities increased by two per cent […]
Today, OCUFA released new poll findings on public attitudes towards higher education and austerity in Southwestern Ontario. Presented at a news conference at the University of Western Ontario, the results indicate that residents of the region do not want the government’s deficit-cutting agenda to compromise the quality of university education in the province. Key findings […]
It is not hard to imagine what will happen to student debt as governments scale back their funding for postsecondary education, causing institutions to increase tuition to cover the shortfall. The latest report on student debt in the United States shows that the average inflation-adjusted debt for first time bachelor’s degree graduates rose from $14,700 […]
Last week, former COU head Ian Clark published an article in the National Post calling for Ontario to adopt California-style university differentiation. Based on a larger research paper submitted to the Government of Ontario, Clark argues that Californian universities get more teaching and research for public dollars than Ontarian institutions. In a recently published response , Ken Snowdon takes this argument apart (full disclosure: OCUFA did […]