As BC’s Universities Struggle, Students Are Ready to Fight

Politicians love to say youth are our future, but that doesn’t seem to stop their austerity measures from threatening higher education. We’ve seen cuts to the Canada Student Grant, reductions in research funding, and decades of funding cuts since the 1970s.

The end of 2025 saw even more dire news for post-secondary education in B.C. The federal budget cut the number of international students Canada will admit by 49 per cent. The B.C. government not only announced no new funding would be coming for the province’s post-secondary institutions, but has stormed ahead with a funding review that could have disastrous consequences.  

How did we get here?

When former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell scrapped B.C.’s tuition cap in 2002, the average tuition in the province doubled in just three years. The government reinstated the cap in 2005 under immense pressure from student activism and protests across the province. Since 2005, this policy has limited tuition increases to two per cent a year, and that cap is a result of united student activism.  

At the same time, our province has chronically underfunded post-secondary education. In the 1970s, provincial funding for higher education made up 90 per cent of operating budgets, which today has been cut to just 40 per cent.

To make up for decades of austerity for higher education, universities relied on exploiting international students with sky-high tuition rates. However, now that the federal government has halved the number of international students permitted across Canada, colleges and universities can no longer rely on international tuitions to bail them out from decades of government underfunding.  

Colleges and universities are feeling the squeeze, and students are the ones most affected. Provincewide, at least 80 programs have been cut or suspended, 20 out of 25 post-secondary institutions are projecting deficits, and even large universities like the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria are cutting staff positions and courses.

The BC government’s post-secondary review 

In order to respond to the funding crisis, the provincial government has launched a new review of the post-secondary sector. From the information the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education has provided, the only clear goal of this review is austerity. The ministry’s terms of reference stress “operational efficiency,” “financial sustainability” and revisiting “all sources of sector revenues,” all while clearly denying universities and colleges a much-needed “injection of permanent, net new funding.”

The ministry’s silence when pressed on details has been deafening. Post-Secondary Education Minister Jessie Sunner has refused to commit to maintaining the two per cent limit for annual tuition increases but has stressed that all options are on the table.

Additionally, the review is defined by a rushed timeline that doesn’t allow for effective consultation. The review was announced on Nov. 25, and consultation wrapped up by Jan. 14. That’s just over a month, with two weeks taken up by the winter break. Given the short timeline for consultations, it’s no wonder that dozens of student unions were cramped into just three 90-minute consultation meetings at the very end of the timeline. In comparison, the previous post-secondary review had over a year to compile results and still never got published, whereas this review is being forced through in just a matter of months.  

Inadequate consultation, refusals to make any commitments and a clear shift towards austerity? It’s not hard to see why, to us student leaders, this review feels predetermined and performative.  

What do we do next?

Amidst a cost-of-living crisis, students simply can’t afford to lose the limit on tuition increases. The post-secondary sector also can’t afford to significantly raise tuition prices. Increasing tuition rates would drive away out-of-province students from Alberta and Ontario, a group that makes up almost a third of students at UBC. This would reduce tuition revenues, further gut institutional budgets and lead to long-term brain drain and a weaker B.C. economy.  

Making education less accessible also weakens our future workforce. Fewer programs and less enrolment mean fewer teachers, doctors, nurses and social workers. We’re in a time when education, health care and so many sectors in B.C. are seeing debilitating staffing shortages. The government needs to invest in education and create a strong workforce, not cut funding and slash opportunity.  

On Jan. 19, the UBC Alma Mater Society, Alliance of BC Students and other student unions protested this review at Sunner’s office, where we gave the government two demands: the minister must reaffirm the province’s commitment to the two per cent tuition cap, and the province must properly fund higher education. 

Right now, the student union movement is uniting around this issue, and we need everyone’s support. For decades, the tuition limit policy kept higher education accessible for B.C. students. It isn’t fair to take that opportunity away from the next generation of students and workers.