As British Columbia’s post-secondary institutions face growing financial pressures, the Camosun College Faculty Association (CCFA) is calling on the provincial government to increase stable public funding for colleges and universities through Budget 2027.
The CCFA has submitted its recommendations to the Select Standing Committee on Finance, arguing that post-secondary institutions need reliable government funding rather than increasing dependence on tuition, international enrolment, and other sources of revenue. The association also called for greater support for community-based education, arts and humanities, and a move toward debt-free post-secondary education.
“We actually make the Select Committee on Finance submissions every year,” says CCFA president Lynelle Yutani, “and what we try to do is balance what’s good for internally, like the CCFA, against what is, in general, we believe, good for post-secondary education and, I would say, by extension, the province, or for all the people of BC. So our recommendations this year focused on the funding insecurity that was revealed by the changes to federal immigration policy and all of the subsequent things that happened with the international student tuition, let’s call it tap, being turned off. So that really, I think, revealed a critical structural problem in BC in that post-secondary education hasn’t been funded like it’s being treated as a public good, or something that we believe is good for the economic prosperity of the province.”
The submission comes as institutions across BC continue to deal with financial difficulties. A June report from BC Policy Solutions found that 19 of the province’s 25 public post-secondary institutions are projected to operate at a loss over the next three years, with an estimated combined annual shortfall of $300 million. The report also found that more than 180 programs have been cut or suspended since 2024, while more than 1,300 faculty and staff have been laid off.
Camosun announced in March that it would need to reduce its 2026-27 budget by between $7.2 million and $9 million. (Camosun College declined to be interviewed for this story.)
“One of the biggest barriers to future prosperity for the average, let’s call, young adult is the cost of education, and with that, the loans that most students take out in order to be able to complete their program, also eat, also pay their rent, you know, tuition notwithstanding,” says Yutani. “So things like increasing the tuition cap or increasing the amount of money that students are allowed to borrow in order to get their education doesn’t really result in a long-term benefit economically.”
The CCFA’s recommendations argue that funding decisions should account for the broader role colleges play in their communities, rather than focusing primarily on immediate labour-market demands. The association says community-rooted programs including arts, humanities, social sciences, and Indigenous studies require dedicated support because their value cannot always be measured through short-term workforce outcomes.
“There is growing concern that subjects that aren’t considered direct payoffs in the employment pipeline are being reduced,” says Yutani. “For example, arts, humanities, social sciences, and a lot of community-rooted education. And because organizations, not just Camosun, but all across BC, are being asked to trim all the fat they can, those are the programs that are hit the hardest. They’re hit earliest, and I think they have the most net detriment for students. And I feel like every single student, when they approach their own personal education and educational journey, should have enough opportunity to discover that thing that they have that level of passion about. But if we’re having to judiciously use our funding in order to deliver on workforce predictions, I worry that that opportunity is going to be limited in a very unfortunate way.”
The funding debate is taking place alongside the province’s review of the post-secondary sector; post-secondary advocacy groups are concerned about what changes the results of the review, which are expected soon, may suggest (a Freedom of Information request by Nexus to see the review was denied).
Another recent examination of the sector, The BC Policy Solutions report, argues that the current crisis is the result of long-term underfunding and an increasing reliance on international student tuition to fill gaps in institutional budgets. It recommends restoring government funding to at least 75 percent of institutional operating costs and maintaining the existing two percent cap on domestic tuition increases.
The CCFA’s Budget 2027 submission similarly argues for a stronger public funding model. It also calls for replacing provincial student loans with needs-based grants and creating dedicated funding for arts, humanities, social sciences, Indigenous studies, and community-rooted education.
“[One of the recommendations asks for] support to post-secondary institutions to meet local and regional workforce development priorities,” says Yutani. “And the reason that I would say that one is because local would include your rural and remote communities, and their needs are very different from urban communities. And I think that when we say workforce development, I would want that to be approached more broadly in terms of not using the labour market predictions. I think we need to stop relying on labour market predictions because they are notoriously inaccurate. They’re always behind. And I think when you have an educated community, whether it’s urban or rural, the people of that community, they know what they want to do. They know what they need in order to be successful. And so creating learning organizations that are well-funded, allowing people in those communities to achieve their goals without the government trying to predict what those should be.”