Surrey school campuses not receiving hike in funding

Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Simon Fraser University are not receiving an increase in their operational grants from the provincial government — both schools have campuses located in Surrey — despite facing significant financial challenges stemming from a drop in international student revenue. 

At the end of July, the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills released budget letters to all institutions that includes how much funding they will be receiving and student full-time equivalent targets. A student taking a full course load counts as one FTE, but a student taking a part-time course load would be less than one FTE. 

The post-secondary sector overall has been facing unprecedented times after years of chronic underfunding and a reliance on international students to pay exorbitant tuition fees to make up the difference.  

Universities also make revenue from donations, endowments, investments and research grants; however, provincial funding for institutions in 2000 was at 68 per cent and has now fallen to 40 per cent. Schools’ reliance on international students came to an end in 2024, when the federal government began capping the number of international students each province could accept. 

KPU’s 2026-27 operating grant from the province is $107.27 million, a slight decrease of about $100,000 from the previous year —  it also had the student FTE target at 9,460, a reduction of 52 FTE students.

The proposed budget for the year had projected $113 million from the province, but in a statement to the Citizen, KPU’s interim chief financial officer Carole Laplante wrote that university budget projections included assumptions that funding for unionized employees’ negotiated increases will be provided once collective agreements are ratified. S those agreements are not yet finalized, those funds are not reflected in the budget letter, but once the amount is confirmed those costs will be offset. 

“The international student enrolment decline has left KPU facing a structural deficit of approximately $35 million by March 2028. To date, KPU’s primary response has been to reduce capacity in program and service areas where demand has fallen,” wrote Laplante. 

SFU did not fare much better with their operating grant this year being $353.96 million and nearly $400,000 less than the previous year. The province also kept the schools FTE target the exact same at 20,534 students. 

In a statement to the Citizen, the university wrote “financial challenges facing the post-secondary sector have impacted SFU and other leading universities, and these pressures are expected to continue into the years ahead. In response, we have strengthened how we plan, allocate and steward our resources to ensure the university remains futureready and responsive. SFU is on solid financial ground. We continue to optimize operations and look for new revenue streams.” 

Over the past two years, both schools have had to lay off nearly 100 staff due to budget shortfalls. 

While most institutions saw little change in their operating grants, a few schools did see a larger increase in funding like the University of Victoria which saw a $3.08 million increase. Other schools, like Royal Roads University saw a $1.28 million increase, bringing their total operating grant to $33.49 million — while a lot lower than KPU or SFU’s grant, Royal Roads has a much a lower FTE target at only 1,980 students. 

The University of British Columbia had by far the largest increase in funding with $34.31 million, bringing the school’s total provincial funding to $1.14 billion. UBC does have the highest FTE target at 44,624 students, but that is about half of SFU’s target and the school does not even get close to $500 million in its operating grant allocation.  

This disconnect between enrolment and funding is no surprise since the province does not have an exact formula for how it decides funding. 

The province previously had a formula in the early 2000s that came up with the block funding amount based upon the number of enrolled students and values and costs of each school’s programming. However, that formula has not been updated or used in over two decades and with no precise formula, the province now decides block funding amounts based on the amount given the year prior with annual adjustments to mainly cover wage increases.

This also means that institutions who under perform on student enrolment targets receive no penalty and schools who over-achieve reap no reward for educating more people.   

Last November, the province announced a post-secondary review intended to ensure long term sustainability for the sector — the report was meant to be completed in March, but has yet to be released. This came after the province faced backlash for quietly shelving a review specifically about the post-secondary funding model initially announced in 2022. 

The funding model continues to be criticized, as institutions raise concern that the current model is creating inequities between the schools. 

“The ministry recognizes that the current funding model has limitations in reflecting evolving costs, expectations, and system pressures and that the sector as a whole has been managing increasing pressure over the past several years,” wrote the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills in a statement. 

The ministry added that differences in funding amounts reflect factors such as programs delivered, specialized training initiatives, research activity and northern or rural delivery contexts.

“We understand the challenges post-secondary institutions are facing and continue to support them as they manage their operations and budgets during this financially challenging time.”