Ontario colleges funded lower than national average, Taylor says

Ontario’s community colleges have fallen behind the national average in per-student funding and are asking the province to ante up hundreds of millions of dollars more, Canadore College president Barbara Taylor says.

Speaking following the college’s board of governors meeting Tuesday night, Taylor said Ontario colleges receive about $4,700 per student from Queen’s Park, while colleges across the country receive $6,800 on average per student.

The discrepancy, Taylor said, presents “huge challenges to us.”

“We need to see movement in the right direction and as a system of colleges, we’re all in this together.”

Not asking for the impossible
Taylor said Ontario colleges want the government to pony up about $360 million over the next four years, which would bring the per-student funding average up to $6,300.

“We’re recognizing the provincial funding constraints, we’re seeing that and we’re not asking for the impossible,” Taylor said.

“But the government needs to invest in colleges, because we’re not a cost we’re an investment. Students getting post secondary education solves all sorts of other problems in our society.”

Another option
“Board decisions” on the other hand will have to be made, Taylor said, if the province doesn't allocate more money.

“Either we present a deficit budget and the board decides whether or not it wants to approve that and then we deal with the ministry in terms of will they allow us to do that,” Taylor said.

Looking at programs and services would be another option, Taylor said.

“We don’t have any services to students right now that I think in all conscience we could or should cut,” Taylor said.

No fat left
Nor are there programs that could be dropped.

“We don’t have any program right now that employers aren’t telling us they don’t need the graduates of or that we don’t have student demand for,” Taylor said.

“So quite frankly there’s no fat left, there hasn’t been any fat left for years and so that’s why we’re being so public and so insistent about this, because we want people to understand that their colleges are facing very very difficult decisions at the board level.”