Colleges push back against review calling for better grad rates after Pallister cuts funds

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/03/2018 (3083 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Red River College has “serious concerns” about a consultant’s recommendations for Manitoba’s post-secondary colleges, arguing it would create a complicated and costly funding formula, increasing red tape.

The province’s largest post-secondary college warned Monday administering the new proposed funding model would require more resources at a time when the institution is now cutting programs after last week’s provincial budget reduced post-secondary operating grants by 0.9 per cent.

“We have some serious concerns with the review’s recommendations, most notably that it recommends the establishment of an elaborate, outcomes based funding formula that we believe would require more resources to administer (likely both at the province and at the colleges) and even more peculiarly, would apply to only 28 per cent of the post-secondary sector,’’ RRC spokesman Conor Lloyd said.

Brandon’s Assiniboine Community College president, Mark Frison, told reporters Manitoba needs more community college seats, and it needs the provincial government to fund them.

“What you will need is program money to respond,” he said.

Education Minister Ian Wishart was vague about whether the Pallister government would come up with any more money, or expect colleges to spend existing funds differently.

The $207,000 review said Manitoba lags behind the rest of the country in post-secondary education, and Red River College’s graduation rate lags well behind ACC’s.

Lloyd said RRC numbers get pulled down by low graduation rates among access students it is working to improve, and suffers from comparison with unnamed colleges and universities “who improve grad rates via policies that restrict entry.”

Frison said ACC’s graduate numbers are up 35 per cent in four years. Assiniboine has set a target of doubling its seats by 2025, he said, but that takes money.

“Most of our programs are full or have wait-lists,” he said.

As is the case with most capital projects promised by the former NDP government, ACC is still waiting for $98 million from the province for the third phase of its move from the aged Victoria Avenue campus to Brandon’s North Hill.

“That one’s been frozen — we need that next move to North Hill,” Frison said, responding to a recommendation in the review for ACC, RRC and University College of the North to find ways to serve rural and northern areas.

“We need to do more in underserved areas — Winkler, Dauphin, Russell,” he said, adding that takes money as well.

Wishart said the generational review is the most comprehensive education review Manitoba has compiled.

“We will develop a comprehensive action plan,” the education minister said. 

The review urges the province spell out the specific goals it expects each school to meet, ways to measure each college’s level of success, and funding based on specific programs and graduation rates.

He will issue a mandate letter to each of the five colleges outlining what the province expects.

“We need to look at the capacity of the system,” Wishart said. “We want to be competitive at the national level.”

He said under the former NDP government, community college success “was more by accident than design,” and it will be the fall of 2019 before the government can begin to effect changes. 

He didn’t rule out more money: “I would not say it’s impossible. We want to add capacity to the system — class size is something we can look at.”

Capital funding will be targeted, and improvements will look at identifying and removing barriers keeping down the graduation rate.

Higher Education Statistics Agency president and report co-author Alex Usher told the news conference Manitoba has never held community colleges accountable for their performance and their value for money.

“There’s never been a strong mandate from government to say that this is what we expect. Those goals need to be set expressly.” Usher said. “Let the institutions manage, let government steer, but not row.”

Wishart said UCN has not delivered the growth the province expects, adding the $92 million the NDP put into a Thompson campus would be money well-spent, but only if UCN grows.

The education minister said he is considering a similar university review before the 2020 provincial election.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca