The Board of Governors approved a $3.8 billion budget for the 2024/25 fiscal year at their meeting on March 27.
UBC’s operating fund is proposed to be $2.7 billion, 71 per cent of the total budget — with the rest of the budget’s $1.1 billion composed of non-operating funds. The budget assumes a consolidated revenue of $3.8 billion with consolidated expenses of $3.7 billion, which results in a surplus of $94 million.
The operating revenue for UBC is projected to come from three main contributors: government grants, tuition fees and sales and services. Revenue from tuition is predicted to be close to $1.1 billion.
For 2024/25, international students tuition accounts for $700 million, while domestic students tuition accounts for $400 million in the budget.
The $1.1 billion of the $3.8 billion budget is accounted for by the non-operating fund. Also known as restricted funding, it needs to be spent on pre-established expenses such as research, capital and endowment among others. The non-operating fund’s budget has stayed consistent from past years.
UBC is anticipating expenses of $2.7 billion. The major contributor to this expenses account is salaries and benefits, which account for approximately 75 per cent of total expenses.
While UBC is expecting a slim increase in domestic student enrolment, they are also expecting a decrease in international student enrolment due to global geopolitical and macroeconomic conditions. According to the budget submission, “the potential impact of this volume decrease has been offset by approved tuition rate increases, resulting in an overall slight increase in international tuition revenue.”
UBC is projecting an enrolment of 63,005 full-time equivalent students on both campuses in 2024/25.
According to the budget submission, the budget model utilized at UBC is “decentralized” which indicates that the various faculties and administrative units have the onus to manage the budget within their respective departments.
Notably, the Faculty of Medicine has the highest operating budget with revenues of $315 million and expenses of $316 million.
For 2024/25, UBC has strategic investments worth over $90 million across both campuses — with the Vancouver campus having investments worth $71 million, and the Okanagan campus $19.5 million. These strategic investments are meant to support multiple causes across campus like student priorities, Indigenous reconciliation, equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives, academic transformation and research excellence and climate action and sustainability.