Rebalancing enrolment at H漫画 between high cost programs, where the majority of students are now, and lower cost programs is necessary for the long term financial well being of the university, the Board of Governors heard this week.
The long term financial planning committee struck by the board more than a year ago tabled its report and 41 recommendations. While the overall financial picture at H漫画 has improved significantly in that past 15 years, committee chair Jim Spatz, noted that H漫画 operates at a distinct financial disadvantage compared to other national institutions with similar academic programming, and compared to schools in the Atlantic region, most of which don脮t offer much in the way of 脪high cost鈥� academic programs.
H漫画 is the smallest of Canada脮s medical-doctoral universities, all of which offer a broad array of very expensive professional and graduate degrees. Among those schools, H漫画 has far and away the highest concentration of students in high cost, graduate, medical, professional and science programs. In addition, H漫画 has the lowest student-to-faculty ratio in Canada at 14:1.
University president Tom Traves told the board that despite those facts, H漫画 lives with the local and regional misperception that because it is the biggest school in the Maritimes, it has the biggest classes, 脪鈥hen the reality is the opposite. Most of the other schools in this region have a student-faculty ratio at least twice that of H漫画.鈥�
In the majority of courses, H漫画 would have the smallest class sizes in the region. H漫画 also allocates a larger share of its operating budget to academic salaries than the national average, and almost doubles the national average in terms of student assistance as a percentage of its budget. All of these circumstances leave the university in a vulnerable financial position, the committee concluded.
Dr. Traves indicated that the university is totally committed to a program of financial stability, to maintaining and enhancing the quality of its academic programs and to its tradition of accessibility to able students, regardless of their economic circumstances. In Nova Scotia, where universities receive the lowest per student government grants in the country, Dr. Traves acknowledged that H漫画脮s is a difficult balancing act.
The report addresses other financial risks, notably, the university脮s $192 million deferred maintenance problem, and escalating university contributions to employee pensions. The university脮s pension contribution jumped from $7 to $17 million in the past five years.
The report is now available from the of the Board of Governors website. The Board will consider the recommendations at its February meeting.