University president puts heat on province over tuition freeze

EDMONTON The NDP government’s continuation of a tuition freeze in Alberta is not sitting well with the province’s largest university — its president says freezes are “unsustainable.”

University of Alberta president David Turpin told Friday’s board of governors meeting he was “very concerned” about the government’s lack of commitment to offset losses in domestic tuition in the next academic year.

“The public policy to freeze tuition, that’s fine, but there’s cost and … someone has to pay for it,” Turpin told the board. “If we don’t receive backfill, it’s a cut, a pure and simple cut to programs.”

On Wednesday, Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt announced the government would extend a two-year freeze into a third year, as well as launching a review of everything from tuition fees to student aid, mandatory non-instructional fees and international student tuition.

The government said it wants a new tuition and fee model in the province for the start of the 2018-19 fall semester.

As part of the original freeze in 2015, the government gave postsecondary institutions $16 million in new cash to make up for the tuition shortfall, but that dollar figure was absent from the most recent announcement and, with the university’s own budget process well underway, that has Turpin worried. He is also worried about the length of the freeze.

“I think government has made it very, very difficult for themselves because if you roll this forward another year it becomes politically far more difficult to get out of a freeze moving into an election,” he told the board, adding, “freezes are unsustainable.

“It’s never been pretty coming out of a freeze and the longer the freeze, the uglier it is.”

Following the meeting, Turpin said he would be urging government to make up for the shortfall.

“We recognize the budget deliberations are ongoing and we will be working with government to make the case that backfill is critical to maintain the quality of postsecondary education in Alberta,” he said.

If you roll this forward another year it becomes politically far more difficult to get out of a freeze moving into an election.

Officials from the University of Calgary and NAIT said they, too, would work closely with government in the budget process. No one was available to speak for MacEwan University.

On Friday, Schmidt said because the province is still in the pre-budget process, no decisions have been made on funding.

“But our government has made it clear that we are committed to stable, predictable funding for our post-secondary institutions,” he said. “While the previous government was planning four-per-cent cuts over these last two years, our government reversed those cuts, and helped prepare Albertans for success by providing increases to institutions of two per cent during both of those years.”