Funding for colleges and universities in Ontario hinges on student job prospects

Minister Ross Romano announced the new mandate at 2:00 p.m. Thursday during a press conference on Zoom.

By Beatrice Toplitsky

BELLEVILLE – Funding for Ontario’s universities and colleges will depend on whether students are landing jobs after graduation, rather than on enrollment, the government announced Thursday.

Ontario’s Minister of Colleges and Universities Ross Romano announced a new agreement that evaluates post-secondary institutions based on 10 criteria to determine their funding. This will include employment, getting a job in a related field and the impact on the economy.

Each institution will decide for itself the weighting of these criteria, giving each one a value from five percent to 25 percent. They will then be judged based on their own past performance.

“Placing a greater emphasis on outcomes will encourage colleges and universities to be more efficient and specialized, and to focus on what they do best,” said Minister Romano in a press release Thursday.

This new method of funding doesn’t begin for another two years. It is delayed due to the pandemic. The data collection comes into effect now, he said. This year, schools will be assessed in terms of graduate employment earnings, the graduate employment rate in a related field, and economic impact among other criteria.

Even in a time of economic uncertainty due to COVID-19, Minister Romano says the two-year cushion will be enough to allow institutions to recover.

“We delayed the attachment of the funding for two years so that there was that stability, but we didn’t compromise securing the data that was so integral and important for all of us,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that when we were talking about recovery, that when everybody in the world is coming out of COVID-19, whether it be because of a vaccine or whatever else may be the scenario, I wanted to ensure that post-secondary education in Ontario hit the ground running.”

When asked if some universities and colleges would respond to the new metrics by dropping certain programs, such as arts and humanities,  Romano said the economy is calling for a variety of educational backgrounds.

 “I think that institutions will certainly be looking at ways to ensure that they’re delivering the best possible programs that respond to labour market needs within their communities or beyond,” he said.