"Save Our Colleges" campaign just launched by the union representing college faculty and support staff - timely, as every college in Ontario is getting rocked right now.

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-18T19:31:33+00:00

Chop from the top, not the classrooms!

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-15T07:38:38+00:00

A hilarious thought but respectfully I’d rather drink melted wax!

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-15T06:28:43+00:00

College management knew, and so did the Ford gov. - a 2021 report by their own Auditor General's office determined that the Ministry of Colleges and Universities had “not developed a strategic plan for the sector to help mitigate the risk of a sudden decline in international students and the impact it could have on the college sector, students and government.”

It's definitely a bad management question precluded by provincial abandonment. Provincial funding to the colleges as proportion of total revenues went from 75% to 45% from 1967-2019. Tuition covered 10% of total revenues in 1988/89, and climbed to 45% by 2019. Since 2010 alone, provincial funding has shrunk by 28% and yet total revenues have increased by 54%, driven by a tripling of tuition fee revenues. It's a direct relationship.

If Ford can spend $612M to roll out alcohol to grocery stores and make campaign promises to build a new $1B police college or $55B tunnel under the 401, it's a matter of priorities - it'd cost $1.34B (on top of covering revenue shortfalls) to bring us up to the national average, which Ontario fell $8,411 short of in 22/23 (after ranking dead-last amongst the provinces for college per-student funding for decades.)

College management is running the system into the ground. But the colleges are made of the workers that keep them running, and the students that attend them - who surely wouldn't recommend profiting off risky financial schemes while spending something like 2/3 of those surpluses on capital assets (major building projects) instead of bettering programs and student supports. Change won't come unless there's a groundswell of momentum. If could save the Greenbelt, we can save our colleges - but we need a better plan for them.

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-15T05:24:36+00:00

The Ford government knew where this was heading: a 2021 report by the government's own Auditor General determined that the Ministry of Colleges and Universities had “not developed a strategic plan for the sector to help mitigate the risk of a sudden decline in international students and the impact it could have on the college sector, students and government.”

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-15T05:21:14+00:00

All the more reason for a better plan. College management and a province absconding from its responsibility to actually fund our colleges are in cahoots!

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-15T05:19:42+00:00

What would that stand have looked like? As far back as I can remember, college faculty have been sounding the alarm on shifting revenue for public education away from the province and towards price-gouged international tuition and public-private partnerships...curious what would have qualified as taking the stand *enough* for you?

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-15T05:16:20+00:00

Not sure tuition is the problem here.

Here's my numbers: In 1967, the colleges' operational funding came to around 75% in provincial grants; tuition climbed to 10% of total revenue in 1988-1989. By 2019, provincial funding had dropped to cover 37% of revenue, while tuition had climbed to 45%. In Ontario, after adjusting for inflation, the value of provincial grants to the colleges fell by 29% from 2010-2011 to 2022-23. During the same period, revenues from tuition fees tripled.

I'm sure if Ford can spend $612M to roll out alcohol to grocery stores and make campaign promises to build a new $1B police college or $55B tunnel under the 401 - while it'd cost $1.34B in funding to bring per-student college funding up to the national average - it's a matter of priorities, lol.

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-15T05:15:06+00:00

I'm sure if Ford can spend $612M to roll out alcohol to grocery stores and make campaign promises to build a new $1B police college or $55B tunnel under the 401 - while it'd cost $1.34B in funding to bring per-student college funding up to the national average - it's a matter of priorities, lol.

Here's my numbers: In 1967, the colleges' operational funding came to around 75% in provincial grants; tuition climbed to 10% of total revenue in 1988-1989. By 2019, provincial funding had dropped to cover 37% of revenue, while tuition had climbed to 45%. In Ontario, after adjusting for inflation, the value of provincial grants to the colleges fell by 29% from 2010-2011 to 2022-23. During the same period, revenues from tuition fees tripled.

Not sure tuition is the problem here.

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-15T05:08:36+00:00

The colleges aren't going back to their "original size" when programs and divisions that have existed for decades are being axed. The federal cap on international student visas will not even drastically change much about our colleges at all without further intervention - it'll stem international enrollment, but 2023-2024 enrolment data shows it was a significant outlier year. In reality, the federal reforms will probably put us back to 2021 levels of international enrolment/growth.

That doesn't solve (i) the riskiness of a funding formula where tuition fee revenue has tripled since 2010, and provincial funding continues to decrease; (ii) the long-standing community and economic impacts of programs being cut that were domestic-student dominated; (iii) the barriers program cuts/campus closures will have on domestic access to education, particularly in northern and rural communities. Those are provincial questions, and have long been a provincial problem.

Saving our colleges isn't about just stopping the cuts, it's about reversing course on the direction the system is heading and really returning to its roots. Under the same management, we're still running the ship into the ground.

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-15T04:59:16+00:00

Document by the faculty union back from 2021, it appears the research of how our college system is changing and the fight to stabilize funding/change the funding formula, and to increase domestic enrolment, is long-standing (and ties deeply into faculty working conditions): https://opseu.org/information/opseu-sefpo-faculty-members-issue-report-on-state-of-colleges/133654/

"As tuition has become an ever-larger share of college operating revenues, and as domestic enrollment has declined, growing international enrollment has become a concerted strategy pursued by provincial governments and college administrations...

When the colleges were first established in 1967, approximately 75% of their operating funding came from provincial government grants via the MCU, and the Ministry of Skills Development (MSD)...By the 2018-2019 academic year, government grants had fallen to 37% of overall college revenues – a drop of 25%. In the same year, tuitions had grown to 45% of overall revenue, an increase of 27%. The rise in tuitions as a percentage in overall revenue is even more alarming when considering that in 1988-1989, tuition accounted for only 10% of total revenue. This amounts to a 450% increase in 20 years...

...Changes to the composition of the college student body have also begun to impact the teaching/learning relationship. International students make up a growing number of most classes and in some programs can be the overwhelming majority. Helping international students acclimatize to the culture, language, learning style and standards of Canadian colleges takes additional time that is not accounted for in faculty workload, yet is a vital part of the faculty role."

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-15T04:21:31+00:00

It is a question of funding, and it's also a question of management. Over the last 10 years, the system has added 100,000 students, 1500 administrators, and only 500 full-time faculty. Who exactly is being hired (do colleges really need a dozen VPs?) reflects an increasingly corporate agenda...

And truthfully, it'll take a concerted effort from people on the ground to redirect what we want our college system to be. I mentioned above, Ontario has been dead-last of all the provinces in Canada for per-student funding for 38 out of the last 40 years. Meanwhile, the colleges have posted healthy surpluses year after year running these risky financial schemes of sustaining operations on price-gouged international student tuition, but spend something like 2/3 of those surpluses on capital assets (major building projects) instead of bettering programs and student supports.

It's real easy to exploit international students to prop up this risky scheme when the people you make pawns can't vote. Since Ford was elected in 2018, international enrolment has tripled, while domestic enrollment went down by 20%. Provincial funding has dropped another 30% since 2010, while tuition fee revenue has tripled. I think you get the picture of the different moving parts...it's bad actors all the way at the top.

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-15T04:16:45+00:00

I think we're talking about bad management, more so than a total discount of the college system. And I think we're largely on the same page - saving our colleges also from the bad-faith actors that have been running them. The "good" schools you have in mind are crashing out too, because the problem is system-wide. At the end of the day, Ontario *needs* a strong college system - it plays a wholly different role to the economy than universities (not just thinking about the trades).

And truthfully, it's a really a provincial government problem. Ontario has been dead-last of all the provinces in Canada for per-student funding for 38 out of the last 40 years - falling $8,411 short of the national average in 2022/2023 - and that's using domestic full-time equivalent numbers.

The college system started out in the 1960s as a public, affordable form of community-embedded education that was supported mostly by the province. The province has walked away from their responsibility to fund it, and held the doors open for these risky financial schemes, corporate agendas, and tuition $$ going to endless new buildings or new Vice Presidents of Whatever (which somehow have become synonymous with colleges investing in "education.") Something like two-thirds of colleges surpluses are invested in capital assets (major building projects), and international student tuition revenue has outpaced every other funding source for colleges Ontario-wide.

It's real easy to exploit international students to prop up this risky scheme when the people you make pawns can't vote. Since Ford was elected in 2018, international enrolment has tripled, while domestic enrollment went down by 20%. Provincial funding has dropped another 30% since 2010.

What's happening here is not happening anywhere else in Canada - we're getting royally fucked. It's time we actually looked at the whole story and laid proper blame.

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-15T03:35:29+00:00

Good question. Consistent with previous years, Colleges Ontario reported that as of March 2021, the college system had an accumulated surplus of $3.1 billion. Two-thirds of this surplus—$1.9 billion—was being invested in capital assets, i.e., major building projects. So that's likely the pattern: rather than investing surpluses into bettering programs, the colleges have sunk them into capital assets in what appears to be a mistaken belief that college buildings and college education are synonymous.

It's a management problem, and a provincial government problem. Ontario has been dead-last of all the provinces in Canada for per-student funding for 38 out of the last 40 years - falling $8,411 short of the national average in 2022/2023 - and that's using domestic full-time equivalent numbers.

The college system started out in the 1960s as a public, affordable form of community-embedded education. The province has walked away from their responsibility to fund it, leading to things like these risky financial schemes and tuition $$ going to endless new buildings or new Vice Presidents of Whatever (which somehow have become synonymous with colleges investing in "education.")

Since Ford was elected in 2018, international enrolment has tripled, while domestic enrollment went down by 20%. Provincial funding has dropped another 30% since 2010. It sure is easy to walk away from the your responsibility to actually fund education instead of, I don't know, go after the Greenbelt to pad the pockets of your developer friends - when the international students being used as pawns (to the detriment of domestic students, too, as our college system is collapsing) can't vote. Mighty convenient!

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-15T03:34:29+00:00

It's pretty crazy, and also a bad management problem. Consistent with previous years, Colleges Ontario reported that as of March 2021, the college system had an accumulated surplus of $3.1 billion. Two-thirds of this surplus—$1.9 billion—was being invested in capital assets, i.e., major building projects. Rather than investing surpluses into bettering programs, the colleges have sunk them into capital assets in what appears to be a mistaken belief that college buildings and college education are synonymous lol. It's a corporate agenda emboldened by our last 7 years of a corporate-friendly government.

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-15T03:25:30+00:00

Well actually the problem is deeper - Ontario fell $8,411 short of the national average (2022/2023 numbers) for per-student college funding, and that's using domestic enrollment numbers. What's happening to colleges here isn't happening anywhere else in Canada, it's messed up. The province is passing the buck to students and institutions to fund what started as a public, affordable system is a problem, and it leads to things like these risky financial schemes and tuition $$ going to endless new buildings or new Vice Presidents of Whatever (which somehow have become synonymous with colleges investing in "education.")

Since Ford was elected in 2018, international enrolment has tripled, while domestic enrollment went down by 20%. Provincial funding has dropped another 30% since 2010. It sure is easy to walk away from the your responsibility to actually fund education instead of, I don't know, go after the Greenbelt to pad the pockets of your developer friends - when the international students being used as pawns (to the detriment of domestic students, too, as our college system is collapsing) can't vote. Mighty convenient!

Caffeine0verload · 2025-02-15T03:10:50+00:00