Loyalist College. Photo by Sam Franks.
By: Sam Franks
BELLEVILLE – The president and CEO of Loyalist College, says the province needs to do more to support rural municipalities and Ontario colleges.
“I honestly feel that small town in rural Ontario is paying a significant price because of the underfunding, far more than a large metropolitan area,” Mark Kirkpatrick told QNet News in an interview on Friday Jan. 31.
The sit down with Kirkpatrick came two days after he announced a 20 per cent reduction in staff at Loyalist and the suspension of 24 programs.
“This college is now under a fiscal challenge; the hospital has been under fiscal challenges – it’s worse in the rural area. The municipalities that get downloaded on – it’s worse in the rural area. At some point the province has to say, do they care?” Kirkpatrick said.
In a note to staff sent on Jan. 29, Kirkpatrick wrote that changes to the International Student Program, including caps on international student enrolment and limits on post-graduate work permits has led to an “immediate and profound decline in demand from international learners who no longer perceive Canada as a welcoming place to pursue their studies and receive a quality post-secondary education”.
Kirkpatrick said that decline means Loyalist faces a $40 million dollar lost in student revenue this fiscal year and a further eight million next year.
Kirkpatrick said that the influx of international students hid the fact that the Ontario government has been underfunding public education for years.
“Colleges in Ontario have always had to try to find a creative and innovate ways to generate alternative revenue sources,” Kirkpatrick said.
Ontario is the least funded province and territory for post-secondary education, according to Statistics Canada.
Funding to Ontario’s public colleges has decreased by 20 per cent since 2009.
In eight provinces and territories over 70 per cent of the funding is provided to colleges by the government. In Ontario, the figure is 32 per cent.
“It’s really hard to generate $40 million in new revenue at the speed that we’re losing it,” Kirkpatrick said.
The province also froze tuition for domestic students in 2015. Kirkpatrick said that seemed great at the time, but long-term effects weren’t considered.
He said that rural colleges like Loyalist have to spend more on operational costs than bigger cities. Many students across the Quinte region rely on public transit to get to school and public transit is less accessible and timely compared to Toronto or Ottawa.
“I feel like we’ve dimmed a little bit of hope out of a lot of young people here because they thought that this was a cool career and they could go to Loyalist, and now they can’t go there, and they can’t afford to go somewhere else,” he said.
Kirkpatrick also said the changes to the International Student Program has done harm to Canada’s reputation with international student. He said that Canada doesn’t seem welcoming to international students anymore.
“The federal government did a very good job in a very short period of time of taking away that reputation provincially, I think the I think the province has to step up,” he said.
Kirkpatrick said in the lead-up to last week’s announcement the college was quietly reducing spending in a way that would not be noticeable to staff and students, but couldn’t stop the program suspensions and job cuts.
“Towards the end of last year, we realized that it’s not enough. This fiscal issue is hitting faster and faster and faster,” Kirkpatrick said.
Kirkpatrick said that the provincial government needs to understand workforce demands look different from town-to-town.
Kirkpatrick said the suspensions were made based on a multitude of factors, such as, future job predictions, trends in enrolment, cost of program delivery and potential support from the government.
“The people (staff and faculty) here are outstanding people. They are good people, and of no fault of their own, bad things are happening, and that’s hard. And there are students here that we need to make sure that we take care of and that they get their their education that they deserve,” Kirkpatrick said.
“I am going to keep fighting for this institution and all rural institutions. I think they are incredibly important to this province, and I think the people that live in these communities deserve the same access as anybody else,” he said.
These suspensions are not unique to Loyalist. Colleges all across Ontario have been making major cuts to staff and programs.
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