The provincial government has announced a funding review to look at how it’s allocating funding to 25 post-secondary institutions, a potential step toward making higher education more affordable.
As the first of its kind in two decades, the review will examine what the province calls “block funding,” which is given to institutions for their general operations, amounting to around 75 per cent of the government’s operating grants. Each year, block funding is given based on the previous year’s grants, independent of the number of student seats or specific pro- grams at an institution.
UBC received $952 million dollars from the province in 2021 — 32.6 per cent of the university’s total operating revenue.
“The current funding model has not been updated in over 20 years and has created constraints and inequities for public post-secondary institutions,” wrote Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Training Anne Kang in a statement to The Ubyssey.
According to a press release by the Ministry of Advanced Educa- tion and Skills Training, the re- view aims to establish a model that “fairly and impartially” distributes funding to public post-secondary institutions. Additionally, it will look into supporting students by making sure they can access “affordable, high-quality post-secondary education” and “expanding key student supports.”
Saad Shoaib, the 2021/22 AMS VP external, said the AMS has been pushing the government to start this review. “We understand and we recognize the urgency of a lot of the affordability problems that students are facing [and] that post-secondary institutions are having to shift the burden on students,” he said.
Last year, 31.6 per cent of UBC’s operating revenue came from tuition fees.
Shoaib said the review’s results could be an opportunity for the society, informing its advocacy on affordability and tuition increases at UBC – given the wide student opposition to tuition increases this year.
“I think [the review] will really allow the AMS to ... put pressure on [the] university when it comes to tuition increases without having deferments to the provincial government,” Shoaib said.
Board of Governors student representative Max Holmes previously argued that the continuous increases were not a sustainable tool for the university to raise funds long term.
He also said that UBC could call for more government subsidies amid the provincial review announcement. Holmes and two other student representatives, Georgia Yee and Shola Fashanu, voted against the the latest tuition increase.
“As a revenue source, we can’t continuously increase tuition, especially if we’re trying to keep up with inflation because we’re going to have to outpace inflation,” Holmes said at the March 31 Board meeting.
According to the press release, the review process will start with stakeholder engagement, including labour and sector associations, student societies and public post-secondary institutions. A separate process to consult with Indigenous peoples will be “co-developed with Indigenous partners.”
Kang wrote that the review will be conducted “at an arms length from the ministry,” and that she is “glad to see this critical work to support students is underway.