[A Student’s Guide] The Recommendations of the Expert Panel on Albertan Post-Secondary Funding

As the Panel observed, Albertan post-secondaries have traditionally received operating funding based on "provincial budgets, institutional costs and historical funding," with "no specific funding formula" underpinning the amount our institutions receive.

However, the Panel recognized that post-secondaries are a "public good": they prepare new workers at a time when employers are under-investing in training, and campuses benefit their surrounding communities. Canadian higher education is roughly 53% public-funded, in stark contrast to the OECD average of 68%. Furthermore, although administrative spending is often blamed for post-secondaries being strapped for cash, the Panel recognized this is not the case for Alberta: "spending on central administration has declined or stayed basically flat" across the sector.

The Panel therefore recommended that the province should replace its current approach with a new funding framework, one that "will require additional funding from the provincial government." This is what the Panel's formula looks like in essence:

Identifying that many campuses are in desperate need of major IT system upgrades, the Panel has recommended that the province should treat these as distinct, long-term investments, rather than leaving post-secondary institutions to pay for these upgrades through general funding. The Panel also suggests that post-secondaries should receive deferred maintenance funding on a three-year cycle, allowing institutions to be more efficient at planning and managing their repair or maintenance projects.

Since 2023, annual domestic tuition increases have been capped at 2% (with some exceptions). The Expert Panel recommends replacing that cap with a guarantee for new students that their tuition will not go up by more than 2% each year for the duration of their program. New students, however, may be quoted a very different 'starting price.'

Although the Expert Panel stressed that "affordability should not be compromised," this will rely on the Ministry of Advanced Education setting reasonable limits on starting tuition prices depending on the cost of a program. (A medical program, for example, would cost more than one requiring less expensive instructional equipment.) To further balance these changes, the Panel emphasizes that the province should focus on offering more non-repayable financial aid (bursaries and grants) rather than loans through Alberta Student Aid.

The federal government introduced caps on study permits for international students in 2024. This was in response to a rising number of international students in provinces other than Alberta—particularly Ontario, which receives more than half of all international students that come to Canada every year. Caps for Alberta were subsequently punitive to our institutions and their ability to attract global talent, affecting graduate students even more than undergraduates.

The Expert Panel recommended that the provincial government should work with other provinces and the federal government to "ensure qualified international students continue to be welcomed at Alberta’s post-secondary institutions," while exploring ways to promote Alberta's post-secondaries so that we "continue to attract top talent."

The Expert Panel recommended that the Government of Alberta should review the regulations that post-secondary institutions currently work under. For example, post-secondaries are currently restricted from accessing reserve funds; they must submit 62 reports annually on how they spend certain funds or execute certain policies. The Panel also recommended that the provincial government should "streamline and speed up the process for approving new programs" of instruction.

You might see these recommendations discussed a lot in reports about the Panel's work. The Panel recommended that post-secondaries should practice "institutional neutrality" by upholding freedom of expression and thought and taking no public political stances. The Panel also urged post-secondaries to avoid 'discriminatory' policies or practices, referring to EDI principles in student and staff recruitment. At UCalgary, this means things like the Student Access Process, which lets students make the case that their grades on paper should be considered alongside personal mitigating circumstances.

These recommendations have caused some concern, which the SU understands. Our submission's section on free speech highlighted evidence that most students enjoy instructors who challenge their views, and that free speech incidents are rare in Alberta (pp. 72-78). In our section on EDI in higher education, we noted that EDI programming costs a fraction of the University's budget; there is no evidence that they undermine merit-based access (pp. 63-71). In fact, UCalgary is one of Canada's most selective institutions.

However, it's useful to look at what the Panel wrote. Their recommendation that our post-secondaries should adhere to the University of Chicago's Principles of Free Expression merely affirms something our post-secondaries already committed to in 2019. The Panel also acknowledged there is value to recognizing that students who have overcome "disadvantages [like] discrimination" may be just as capable as their peers, despite what their paper grades may imply. Overall, the Panel cautioned against post-secondaries deviating from neutrality or favouring characteristics over merit.

While the SU disagrees that this is an issue in Albertan higher education at all (pp. 63-78), we also appreciate the Panel's nuanced analysis of a topic that takes up an outsized and often emotive amount of room in debate around post-secondary operations. We sincerely hope this aspect of the Panel's report does not distract from the real issue facing our campuses, which is that "Alberta’s post-secondary institutions receive the third lowest funding per student... from the provincial government" among Canada's provinces.