Students and faculty across the province are sounding the alarm
Laura Morales P. (she/her) // Co-EIC
Yizou Li (He/Him) // Illustrator
The Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills launched a review “with a holistic approach to sector-wide sustainability,” on November 25, 2025. The purpose of this review is to stabilize B.C.’s public post-secondary institutions, given that 19 of the 25 institutions in B.C. are “forecasting at least one annual deficit and nine are in an accumulated operating deficit position.” However, the Alliance of BC Students (ABCS) described this review as a “farce,” given the short allocated time-frame of approximately six weeks, and classified the talk of sustainability and efficiency as a narrative to justify “tuition hikes, service reductions, and campus closures.”
The BC Federation of Students (BCFS) and the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC (FPSE) are also sounding the alarm. On Nov. 25, Herrera Lira, chairperson of the BCFS, stated that long-term sustainability cannot be discussed “without committing new funds alongside meaningful changes,” considering that the post-secondary education system has been “proven to be systemically underfunded.”
Similarly, in a media release published on Nov. 26, the president of the FPSE pointed out how the B.C. government encouraged the recruitment of international students to compensate for funding gaps, and how disappointing it is for new funding to be off the table now that revenue from international tuition has dropped significantly. The ABCS warned, “raising tuition, closing schools, and laying off campus workers won’t fix our public post-secondary education system, it will destroy it.”
Another review was launched by the B.C. government in March 2022, but the findings were never released. At the time, the province recognized that the block-funding model it currently uses hasn’t been updated in over 20 years, which “has created constraints and inequities for some public post-secondary institutions.” The findings of this review were meant to be released in the fall of 2022, in a report called What We Heard. This report, however, was never released by the government and only recently did a freedom of information (FOI) request filed by the BCFS shed light on the contents.
The Ministry indicated that the information collected during the 2022 review was never released because of the “dramatically changed landscape” produced by the 2024 federal policy changes. However, as revealed in a Castanet article from November 14, 2025, “The B.C. government had all the information it needed to fix problems in how public universities and colleges across the province are funded before federal policy changes caused a sector-wide financial crisis.” The FOI documents released by the BCFS contain three key takeaways:
- According to the lead consultant of the review, without a “material increase” of approximately $200 million—on top of current collective bargaining related increases—any benefits for one institution would mean a loss in funding for another.
- In an information note sent to Minister Selina Robinson on Feb. 25, 2023, the lead consultant had prepared different options to move forward with the results of the review, depending on whether a material increase in post-secondary education funding was consistent with the government’s 2-year agenda. Given that the review was shelved, it’s safe to assume that the answer was no.
- The consultant described the current block funding method as a “zero-consequence funding approach.” For example, institutions are provided with a target number of how many students they should have, but there are “no penalties for under-delivery.” As a result, there’s a “management culture within many [institutions] of ‘don’t manage, rather complain about inadequate funding.’”
The Ministry doesn’t acknowledge the under-funding of post-secondary institutions in the announcement of their new review, and won’t release the 2022 What We Heard report that directly addresses how reliance on international student revenue is a direct, intentional and risky strategy to fill a gap created by provincial underfunding, or ‘prevailing fiscal conditions’ to use the report’s exact wording.
Moreover, the Ministry states that it has supported the post-secondary sector with a funding increase of $1.2 billion since 2016-17, but it also acknowledges that this increase only addressed negotiated wage increases and “targeted seats in high-demand areas.” On the other hand, according to a report published in March 2025 by the BC Federation of Students (BCFS), titled Building Resiliency: Stabilizing BC’s Post-Secondary Education System, funding from the government accounted for over 80 per cent of institutional revenue in the 1980s, 68 per cent in the early 2000s and today represents 40 per cent.
Lastly, the recently announced review also attributes the financial pressure experienced by post-secondary institutions to declining domestic enrolment. This trend—according to the 2025 BCFS report—can be traced back to the tuition hike in the early 2000s. After a 10-year domestic tuition freeze came to an end in 2001, “undergraduate domestic tuition rose 92.6 per cent from $2,527 to $4,867,” until the two per cent cap for domestic tuition increases was put in place in 2005. Still, one of the expected outcomes of the new review process is to “review tuition policies.” The Courier asked Capilano University’s administration whether it supports the two per cent cap on domestic students, or if they would increase domestic tuition by more than two per cent (in line with inflation) if the cap was no longer in place. The administration responded, “CapU complies with the provincial policy that limits domestic tuition increases to two per cent annually. Any consideration of changes would require careful review, consultation with the university community, and approval through established governance processes.” The administration didn’t confirm or deny if they support this cap, only that they comply with it, followed by a recap of the steps involved in the process to increase domestic tuition if the cap was no longer in place.
According to Statistics Canada, the percentage of students in B.C. who owed debt at graduation in 2020 was 44 per cent, with half of them owing $25,000 or more. Moreover, the data obtained from the department of Institutional Research at CapU indicates that 82 per cent of domestic students are working for pay while studying, from the 370 respondents of the survey conducted at the beginning of Fall 2025. Acknowledging that students are accessing campus food banks in record numbers and working multiple jobs, the ABCS argues that, “Asking this generation to pay even more is not ‘reform’—it’s cruelty.”
Comparative chart of the two reviews
| Characteristics | Funding formula review (March 2022) | Sector-wide sustainability Review (November 2025) |
| Led by | Don Wright | Don Avison |
| Indicated reason | The block funding model currently used hasn’t been updated in over 20 years and “has created constraints and inequities for some public post-secondary institutions.” | Stabilize B.C.’s public post-secondary institutions, given that “19 of the 25 institutions in B.C. are forecasting at least one annual deficit.” |
| Engagement phase | April – August, 2022 | Nov. 25, 2025 – Jan. 15, 2026 |
| Scope | Included input from 25 public post-secondary institutions, sector organizations, business community in over 40 targeted engagement sessions, Indigenous partners, student, labour and sector associations. | Consultation and engagement with stakeholders (the terms of reference don’t specify which ones, but state it “should reflect input from those ultimately impacted.”) |
| Limitations | Focused on the “methodology for the block grant portion of the operating grant,” and didn’t review “collective bargaining issues, capital funding, and trades training funding.” | “A large injection of permanent, net new funding for the sector is not expected given the fiscal reality, which means other strategies will need to be explored.” |
| Priorities | Develop an updated, modern funding model that fairly distributes provincial financial resources, access to affordable, high-quality education and expanding key student supports. | “Labour market demands, government priorities, community needs, and resources needed for student supports.” |
| Expected outcomes | The design of an updated, modern block funding model, “which represents approximately 75 per cent of government operating grants.” |
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| Report release date | Fall 2022 (What We Heard report; never released) | March 15, 2026 (including recommendations) |