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CBC
09-07-2025
- Business
- CBC
Most of Nova Scotia's universities are in the red. Here's why, and what's next
Nova Scotia's universities are planning cuts, program reviews and tuition increases to grapple with budget shortfalls over the coming year. All of the province's large universities are planning to run a deficit in 2025-26. The troubled times come amid a significant drop in international enrolment, a government-mandated tuition freeze for some students and stagnating provincial funding. Here's the financial outlook for each university over the coming year: Acadia University: $2.8-million deficit. Atlantic School of Theology: $7,551 surplus. Cape Breton University: $6.8-million deficit. Dalhousie University: $20.6-million deficit. University of King's College: $750,000 deficit. Mount Saint Vincent University: $1.59-million deficit. NSCAD University: $1.245-million deficit. Saint Mary's University: $2.8-million deficit. St. Francis Xavier: $1.966-million deficit. Université Sainte-Anne: not provided or published. This is not business as usual. Most universities are accustomed to surpluses, not deficits. Dalhousie University, Cape Breton University and Mount Saint Vincent University have reported surpluses every year of the last five up to 2023-24, but all three are in the red this year. Some universities have had a deficit in at least one of the previous five years, and St. Francis Xavier University and the University of King's College have run deficits in several recent years. The president of the Atlantic School of Theology, Rev. Heather McCance, says although the school has a very small surplus on the books right now, the new collective agreement with faculty reached on July 1 will affect the budget, but until it is ratified, she cannot provide more details. Why is this happening? For decades, provincial governments provided the majority of the operating revenue for universities, but across Canada that percentage has dropped from about 55 per cent in 2012 to closer to 40 per cent in 2023. Nova Scotia is no exception. Although the province gave a two per cent increase in the operating grants to universities this year, it is not keeping pace with inflation. Government funding now makes up 33 per cent of university revenue in this province. Many universities turned to tuition to compensate, and the global market was the focus of these efforts. International students pay a premium for studying at Nova Scotia universities, paying more than double or even triple the tuition rates charged to Canadian students. Cape Breton University threw its weight behind this strategy of enticing international students, to the point that 77 per cent of its student body in 2023-24 came from outside Canada. Other universities had smaller but still significant proportions of international students, with Saint Mary's at nearly 28 per cent, Université Sainte-Anne at about 27 per cent, and Dalhousie and Mount Saint Vincent at 21 per cent the same year. International model has crashed But in January 2024, the federal government announced a cap on international student permits amid concerns about the effect of skyrocketing numbers on the housing market and to crack down on so-called "diploma mills." In September, Ottawa further reduced the intake of international students by 10 per cent, and included graduate students, who had previously been exempt. The effect has been drastic and swift. Cape Breton University, for instance, had 6,974 international students in 2023-24, but that fell by 1,200 last year and is expected to continue dropping this fall. Dalhousie's international enrolment fell from 4,279 in 2023-24 to a projected 3,382 in 2025-26. Acadia had 489 full-time international students in 2023-24, and that's expected to drop to 374 in 2025-26. As of March, applications to Acadia from would-be international students had fallen by 58 per cent from the previous year. Mount Saint Vincent is anticipating a 5.5 per cent drop in international enrolment. Peter Halpin is the executive director of the Association of Atlantic Universities. He said universities in the region rely more heavily on international students than other parts of Canada, with an average of 30 per cent of enrolment coming from abroad, compared with 20 per cent in the rest of the country. Halpin said Nova Scotia universities overall lost more than 14 per cent, or more than 2,000 international students last year alone. "That represents a major revenue loss for many institutions, and 2025 looks equally as grim, quite frankly," he said. 'It was never going to be sustainable' Peter McInnis is the past president of the Canadian Association of University Teachers and the former president of the St. FX Association of University Teachers. He said the days of relying so heavily on income from international students are likely over. "It might change a little bit, but I don't think it'll ever be the numbers that it was before," said McInnis, who is also an associate professor of history at St. FX. "That was never going to last, it was never going to be sustainable.… It was always going to be unstable and volatile." The processes that international students must go through now to get a student visa and attend university are so onerous that students are choosing to go elsewhere, said Halpin. "The damage to Canada's brand internationally is very, very significant. International students have options, and right now Canada is not perceived as a welcoming country." Other reasons for the financial pinch universities are experiencing include fluctuating interest income, province-mandated tuition freezes for some students and contractual increases to expenses, including labour costs. What's next Some universities have said they will be implementing across-the-board cuts to departments, axing programs, reconsidering their real estate footprint, tapping into special reserves of funding, not renewing contract staff, considering retirement incentives and increasing tuition for out-of-province and international students. Most schools do have other sources of funding, including from capital campaigns, endowment funds and research grants, but those sources are often tied to specific uses and cannot be applied to operating budgets for day-to-day use. "Immediate decisions must be made to generate additional revenue, find efficiencies across both the administrative and academic sectors, and live within our means," reads Acadia's budget document. "Without intentional and significant change, Acadia is heading down a path of being financially unviable in the short term." Despite the current situation, McInnis said universities are still worthy of investment and support. "We actually have a really vibrant educational system in the province and it's something that we should sustain," he said. Halpin agreed. "They make such a valuable contribution to Nova Scotia's economic growth and attraction of talent and driving the research agenda and creation of new business that, you know, I think there's always going to be a place for strong competitive universities in the province."
Calgary Herald
03-05-2025
- Politics
- Calgary Herald
Be Awake and Be Aware: A warning for our times
Article content Article content I was shaken awake from my comfortable slumber when I was introduced to the following list of markers depicting the rise of fascism. Do you see any parallels to our present landscape? Article content Private enforcers at political rallies. Discrediting of the free press. Co-opting religion as source of authority, Hyper-militarism. Promises of future greatness via magical impact of the great leader. Xenophobia. Heightened misogyny. Tolerance for attacks on the marginalized. Appeals to a glorious mythic past. Insistence on allegiance to symbols of patriotism, Strong-arm rhetoric. Threats to crush purported enemies. Thinly veiled racism. Open contempt for immigrants Discrediting of elected officials and bodies. Attempts to circumvent legislative process. Threats to undermine the judiciary. Relentless blaming of foreign powers for domestic woes. Demands for unwavering loyalty to the leader Article content Article content This list was representing the warning signs of fascism present in the mid-1940s yet could easily speak to our present reality. Dr. Rob Fennell from Atlantic School of Theology in 2016 warns that it seems history is repeating itself. Article content Article content Fennell recently preformed a one-man production entitled Bonhoeffer meets Trump. He imagined a conversation between a 1940s German Protestant pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer and USA President elect Donald Trump. Bonhoeffer appears as a ghost in Trump's dream, much like Scrooge's old friends appear to him in A Christmas Carol. The play is set in the present time and the conversation highlights who Bonhoeffer was and parallels to our present reality. Article content Bonhoeffer was a Protestant theologian during the Second World War. He warned people about the dangers of fascism. He called people to be awake and aware of coming ruin. Because of his outspoken manner, he was arrested, deemed to be a political prisoner, sent to a German concentration camp and executed in 1945. Article content Article content Fennell's presentation emphasizes the startling similarities between the present-day American political climate and the ideologies of 1940s Germany. Article content Upon viewing Fennell's supposed conversation, many question began to form in my head: How can we possibly live faithfully in times of chaos, confusion, and uncertainty? Are we aware of the impending dangers? Are we awake and prepared to resist and speak truth to power? Are we going to allow history to repeat itself? Article content Fennell attempts to broadly answer these questions by stating, 'So often people deny or avoid the reality of the present moment and in doing so, are lulled into perilous and dangerous times.' Article content Fennell did offer suggestions on how to respond to our political reality. First, be rigorously aware of what is happening. Second, be awake and willing to speak out and up against harmful measures. Fennell warned us that all too often people assume someone else will speak up against an atrocity until they discover that there is no one left to speak. He read a powerful poem called First They Came by Pastor Martin Niemoller, a contemporary of Bonhoeffer's:
Irish Times
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Bishops ‘have got to be fired': The Maga Catholics trying to take back control of the church
Jesse Romero, a Catholic podcaster based in Phoenix, Arizona, says the time has come for a 'Trump-like pope' who will restore traditional Christian values in the wake of Pope Francis's death . 'Anyone who's soft on abortion, who has Marxist tendencies, who's pro-homosexual – we've got to get rid of them,' the conservative influencer and author said. 'There are bishops who have marched on Pride parades ... they've got to be fired.' Romero is one of a growing cohort of conservative Catholics in the US who hope that Francis's death will mark a decisive shift away from the reformism he personified , towards a more doctrinaire, traditionalist approach to the faith. 'They will definitely be hoping to see a rejection of the Francis pontificate at the next conclave,' said David Deane, who teaches Christian doctrine at the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax, Canada. 'A lot of them were fundamentally opposed to Francis.' READ MORE The mood in the hardline camp was summed up by Roger Stone, a Catholic and long-time ally of President Donald Trump , who denounced on X the posthumous paeans to Francis on US network TV as 'nauseating'. 'His papacy was never legitimate and his teachings regularly violated both the Bible and church dogma,' he wrote. 'I rather think it's warm where he is right now.' In a further X post on Wednesday , claiming that Pope Francis gave the Chinese Communist Party a veto over the appointments of Catholic Church bishops in China, Stone said: 'Because God's judgment is perfect Pope Francis burns in hell for his accommodation with evil.' Stone's posts reflect an animosity towards Francis among US traditionalists that emerged early in his papacy and has only grown stronger. The mood has spread throughout the clergy and energised conservatives who have been empowered since Trump returned to the White House. 'There is a significant range of American Catholic opinion that would have preferred someone who was a little less doctrinally adventurous, a little more traditional and – as they would see it – someone who was a little less anti-American,' said John Allen Jr, editor of Crux, a Catholic news website, and author of several books on the church and the papacy. Distrust of Francis was particularly widespread among the 'Maga' Catholics, a group that combines support for Trump's populist, nationalist agenda with an embrace of Christian orthodoxy and deep suspicion of liberal trends in the church. 'There's a symbiotic relationship between Maga and the Catholic post-liberals in which each fuels and encourages the other,' Deane said. 'Trump has boosted Catholicism by reaffirming some essential things, such as border protection, the defence of human life and the fact there are only two genders,' said John Yep, leader of Catholics for Catholics, a political campaign group. 'That was good for Catholics and that's why 58 per cent of Catholics voted Republican in November.' The most celebrated Maga Catholics are Steve Bannon , Trump's former chief strategist, and vice-president JD Vance , who converted to Catholicism in 2019 and was one of the last world leaders to meet Francis during a brief encounter at the Vatican on Easter Sunday. Pope Francis meets US vice-president JD Vance at the Vatican. Photograph: Vatican Media/AP Vance caused an outcry in January by accusing the US Conference of Catholic Bishops of only supporting illegal immigrants because of the substantial federal funding American dioceses received to help resettle them. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, called the remark 'scurrilous' and 'very nasty'. Trump himself has worked hard to align Maga with the church. In February he created a taskforce to 'eradicate anti-Christian bias'. He also appointed Brian Burch as US ambassador to the Vatican, an outspoken critic of Francis and head of a group that mobilised Catholic voters for the Republicans last year. But if anything, the movement is broader than Trump and Vance and is the result of long-term trends in a church that is shifting right. 'The clergy that has graduated from seminaries in the last 10-20 years [in the US] tends to be more conservative,' said Janna Bennett, chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Dayton, Ohio. She noted the role played by institutions such as the Franciscan University of Steubenville, in Ohio and Ave Maria University in Florida, both of which have a conservative reputation and have provided a pipeline of aspirant priests and lay ministers with a traditionalist mindset. According to a survey published in 2023 by the Catholic Project, a research group at the Catholic University of America, more than 80 per cent of priests ordained since 2020 described themselves as theologically 'conservative/orthodox' or 'very conservative/orthodox'. The researchers said that while theologically 'progressive' and 'very progressive' priests made up 68 per cent of new ordinands in the 1965-69 cohort, that number had today 'dwindled almost to zero'. It is no surprise, then, that Pope Francis became such an irritant to many American Catholics. Traditionalists were particularly angered by Amoris Laetitia, his 2016 apostolic exhortation, which raised the possibility of allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the sacraments. They also denounced his 2023 decision to approve blessings for same-sex couples, his advocacy of action against climate change and his welcoming approach to migrants. For conservative Catholics who had always been uncomfortable with the reforms of Vatican II, his hostility to the Latin mass was particularly hard to accept. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, pauses during a Mass for the late Pope Francis at St Patrick's Cathedral in New York on Tuesday. Photograph: Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images Experts say the orthodox, anti-Francis camp never constituted a majority of Catholics in the US. 'Their noisiness is out of proportion with their number,' said Steven Millies, professor of public theology at the Catholic Theological Union. But they have become increasingly influential in recent years, thanks in part to institutions such as EWTN, the world's largest Catholic media network, which has amplified hardline views. Based in Alabama, EWTN has raised millions of dollars in donations, with the money going in part towards 'creat[ing] more programming and content that gives glory to God', the network's website says. 'Francis was a great gift to them, because it's an industry that thrives on a spirit of opposition,' said Millies. 'One must have an enemy in order to outrage people into opening their wallets.' The late pope did not take the criticism of his US antagonists lying down. After the conservative cardinal Raymond Burke attacked him over Amoris Laetitia, Francis threatened to evict him from his Vatican apartment. He also dismissed the Texan bishop Joseph Strickland , another vocal critic in the US church, from his diocese. Tim, Luke and Tina McMorland listen to Bishop Joseph Strickland during a rally to support him outside the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore in November 2023. Photograph: Wesley Lapointe/New York Times Francis had made clear his distaste for the policies Trump has enacted during his second term, writing in a letter to American bishops in February that deportations of migrants violated the 'dignity of many men and women, and of entire families'. Romero said he hoped the next pope would usher in a change of direction. 'We're looking to someone who can heal the fractures within the church and eradicate some of the modernist tendencies that have crept in,' he said. But that view may not necessarily be shared by the senior American clerics taking part in the upcoming papal conclave. Of the 10 US cardinals under the age of 80 who are eligible to cast ballots in the selection process, six were elevated to their current rank by Francis and are generally sympathetic to his vision of the church. 'There's a much better chance that we'll have someone in the image of the late pope – a Pope Francis the second,' Yep said. − Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
CBC
12-03-2025
- Business
- CBC
Students decry 'shameful' 25% rate increase at Halifax university residence
Social Sharing Post-secondary students living in the residence at the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax were shocked by a letter from administration last week outlining a 25 per cent monthly rate increase for residence rooms starting in September. The residence provides housing for up to 103 students from Dalhousie University, NASCAD University, Saint Mary's University, Nova Scotia Community College and the University of King's College, as well as its own students. Since the news of the rental increase, students have been organizing in protest, putting up signs and flyers around the south-end campus emblazoned with slogans like, "Cut the Hike — No to 25." University of King's College physics student Nicholas Todd is one of the dorm residents protesting the increase. He says many students will struggle to pay the higher rates but can't afford to move elsewhere. "AST booting the rent up is actually going to create a significant trail of human misery behind it," Todd said in an interview Monday. According to the Atlantic School of Theology, the current residence rental rates range from $660 to $768 monthly for standard or large single rooms, with a shared kitchen and bathrooms. Todd said these inexpensive rates are what drew many students there. He is living in the cheapest room style, paying $660 per month. After the increase in September, that will rise to around $825. "It's very, very frustrating to see such a stark increase," Todd said. "Especially when our building manager in our email said that they are aware … there is the five per cent limit due to the Tenancy Act, but universities are exempt." University says rates remain lowest in city Atlantic School of Theology president Rev. Heather McCance said the increase is an attempt to bring the university's residence rates closer to the market rate in the city. She said even with the increase, the rooms will be going for 25 per cent less than dorms at other universities. But she said she understands the students' concerns. "I don't blame them for being upset," McCance said in an interview Tuesday. "I'd be upset. You'd be upset. Anybody would be upset with that kind of a jump. And we looked at the possibility of spreading it out, but frankly, there are costs we need to recoup." McCance said the federal government's international student cap has been hurting the school's bottom line. She said the residence used to have a long waitlist, but this year the dorm is not even full. In December 2022, the provincial government provided $3 million to the Atlantic School of Theology to upgrade the residence and add more beds to meet increased demand for student housing. McCance said "it was an expectation from the province" that when the renovations were complete, the university would raise the rent closer to market value. Not protected by province's temporary rent cap According to the Nova Scotia government, university and college dorm rentals do not fall under the province's Residential Tenancies Act because "they are board governed institutions that determine their rental costs." This means the temporary ban on rent increases over five per cent does not apply to students renting there. "We are disappointed with this sizeable rent increase at a time when cost of living increases are affecting many students," said Department of Advanced Education spokesperson Chloee Sampson. Sampson also said the department gave no direction to the Atlantic School of Theology to increase rents as part of the funding agreement. Char Russell, a NASCAD University student who lives in the Atlantic School of Theology dorms, said they were surprised to learn the province's rent cap doesn't apply to universities. "It's really shameful that this is happening," Russell said. "Especially because it feels like they're taking advantage of a loophole to exploit students." Both Russell and Todd said they don't feel the building is worth the new higher prices, saying it isn't in great condition and citing the presence of mould as an example. McCance denied this but admitted there is "occasionally some mildew" that is dealt with quickly. This week, a poster advertising an opportunity for students to meet with McCance and other university officials on March 20 was posted inside the building. McCance said she has only heard directly from one student contesting the increase, and she wants to open a dialogue. "I want to hear what they need more of to make this an attractive place for them to live," she said. "And we will do everything we can to make that happen within the constraints that we have on us." Russell said the best outcome would be for the university to reconsider the rate increase, "especially during a housing crisis."
