Windsor Star

New funding formula ‘a complicate­d process’

Government will provide money based on three-year enrolment estimation­s

- DAVE WADDELL dwaddell@postmedia.com twitter@winstarwad­dell

University of Windsor president Alan Wildeman hopes new provincial rules will stabilize school funding, not muddy the waters further.

The three-year agreement, which goes into effect this year, requires each university to estimate its enrolment over the next three years.

Once enrolment numbers are settled on, universiti­es have to remain within three per cent on either side of that figure.

The funding formula is part of each university’s strategic mandate agreement (SMA) with the province.

“It’s a complicate­d process and we’re still trying to settle on those figures,” said Wildeman, who said the new strategic mandate agreements will last until 2020. “Based on historic trends, we expect about 15,500 students (this fall).

“We believe, by doing the things we’re doing, we potentiall­y will have some modest growth over the next three years. That would be about 650 graduate and undergradu­ate students.”

To ensure some stability during the first three years of the new funding agreement, the province has guaranteed there’ll be no penalties levied if enrolment falls below that band. At the same time, those that exceed enrolment levels by three per cent aren’t in line to get any additional funding either.

The aim of keeping the enrolment figures within a six per cent band is to provide stable and predictabl­e funding for both universiti­es and the government.

For the upcoming school year, government grants will account for 36.9 per cent of Windsor’s $267-million operating budget.

Student tuition will cover 61.2 per cent or $157.3 million of the budget.

“This is all still a bit of an unknown,” Wildeman said of the changes. “There are some guarantees on funding for the first three years, but after that I’m not sure.”

Universiti­es in the rapidly growing Greater Toronto Area worry the funding formula isn’t flexible enough to account for significan­t growth, which will force them to turn away students.

The region is expected to grow by three million people or nearly 50 per cent in the next 25 years

Wildeman said he doesn’t anticipate Windsor having those concerns, but understand­s the fears of his peers.

“In the GTA, demand might outstrip the enrolment corridor of a school,” Wildeman said. “In the regions in the rest of Ontario, the demographi­cs are steady or in slight decline.

“In Windsor’s case, a lot of work went into our SMA and supporting our recruitmen­t efforts. If we do everything right, we feel we’ll be OK.”

Windsor is positionin­g itself to be a player in the Toronto market with an aggressive advertisin­g campaign and a recruitmen­t officer permanentl­y located in the GTA.

If the popular universiti­es in the GTA can’t take in students due to a lack of funding, it could force some of those students to consider options further afield.

“We don’t know that,” Wildeman said about whether Windsor would benefit from GTA schools turning away prospectiv­e students. “That’s a question people are asking. It remains to be seen how it plays out.

“If they come, it’ll be because it’s a great place to go to university. I don’t think that recruitmen­t will increase by default.”

 ??  ?? Alan Wildeman
Alan Wildeman

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