College vows to make new budget work

By JEREMY APPEL on October 26, 2019.

NEWS PHOTO JEREMY APPEL - Medicine Hat College CEO and president Kevin Shufflebotham says cuts to provincial grants for postsecondary education are expected, but the college is working to blunt their impact on the students.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel

Substantial cuts to post-secondary funding in the provincial budget came as no surprise to Medicine Hat College administrators, but will likely mean students end up paying more for tuition in the near future.

However, MHC president and CEO Kevin Shufflebotham says any changes to the school’s funding framework will only be done after extensive consultations with the students’ governing body. 

The budget includes a five per cent reduction in grants for post-secondary institutions as part of a 2.8 per cent cut to overall expenses.

A cap on tuition instituted last year by the then-NDP government was also lifted. 

“It was really clear when the government was elected what their mandate was, so I think what we’re really seeing is them fulfilling that mandate,” Shufflebotham said. 

MHC is in the midst of “an important strategic planning process” that looks ahead to the next decade, so administrators will have to make the plan fit within the confines of their finances, he said. 

“What the budget does do is challenge us to work faster and be more sustainable in the future,” said Shufflebotham.

The college’s executive team is still going through the numbers released by the finance ministry on Thursday, so there’s still some degree of uncertainty, he added. 

MHC is primarily funded through grants and tuition, so a reduction in grant funding necessitates increased tuition.

“What institutions will be allowed to do over the next three years in consultation with their students is increase tuition by seven per cent,” said Shufflebotham. By the fourth year, tuition hikes must be linked to the consumer price index. 

“It could mean more costs to students in practice,” Shufflebotham says. “Any time we increase costs towards education, yes, absolutely, it could (impact) access.”

He said the college will consult with the students’ association to determine the most prudent course of action. 

“It’s way too early to talk about tuition increases,” said Shufflebotham. “What we need to worry about is in the current year, we have some money to find in the budget and then those are tools we need to look at more in the longer term.”

One way to handle the budget shortfall while blunting its impact on students is to reduce administrative costs, he said. 

“I’m not sure exactly how it’s going to impact access, but I can tell you every decision we make we’ll have a student in the mind, absolutely every decision,” said Shufflebotham. 

As it stands, MHC tuition for a full year ranges from the low end at $2,808 for the third year of the paramedic diploma program to a high of $6,084 for the first year of the power engineering technology diploma.

Joel French, executive director of Public Interest Alberta, says the province’s budgetary decisions will cause tuition to “skyrocket,” which will necessarily result in decreased accessibility. 

“If we are serious about building the economy of the future and having a well-educated population overall, we should be heading in the opposite direction, making investments to expand educational opportunities,” French said in a news release.